The number of transactions awaiting verification is up more than fivefold from 2016, and the jam is forcing users to pay increasingly high fees to speed up confirmations, which in some cases is making Bitcoin more expensive to use than Visa or PayPal.
To fix the problem, the global Bitcoin community has begun backing a controversial solution known as Bitcoin Unlimited. This initiative is essentially a software upgrade to the blockchain that eliminates any cap imposed on the amount of data it could process. Another solution is SegWit, which uses a different method to verify transactions.
While the rift over Bitcoin’s future has gone on for more than two years, the majority of miners prefer to wait for a consensus-based solution instead of rocking the boat, the online publication continues.
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