Scalability on Blockchain: Is There a Solution?

At a basic level, this relates to whether a blockchain network is capable of providing the same fast, high-quality experience to all of its users - irrespective of how many are online at any given time.

Consumers frustrated by slow transaction speeds would see no incentive to switch from existing tools that have a far greater foothold in the market.

Even by 2017, the network was beginning to buckle under the strain of user demand - and as a result, fees to send BTC increased unless users were willing to wait for days for transactions to be settled.

You may think that this would prove to be the silver bullet to the perennial scalability issue, but a low rate of use has actually meant that operating nodes are losing money when transactions are processed.

Where e-commerce comes inNaturally, seven transactions per second isn't going to cut it for the fast-paced e-commerce sector.

Often-quoted figures from Visa, the payment processing giant, claim that it is able to process in excess of 24,000 transactions per second.

Despite the fees that merchants face when using this company's infrastructure, it's difficult to see why many of them would turn away from a well-established system that's been embraced by customers for something that can handle 3,400 times fewer transactions a second.

While some are tempted by the notion of attracting new customers by giving them a chance to use an asset that isn't accepted anywhere else, others are keen for transactions to be settled faster - eliminating the agonizing, sometimes days-long wait to get funds in their business account.

This method of validating transactions is built upon a system of reputation and real-time voting, with delegates placed squarely in charge of accepting or refusing network transactions.

The company estimates that it can handle up to 5,000 transactions per second - a capacity it claims "Will only increase in time" and would make it "One of the fastest blockchains in the world." This scalability is complemented by a multicurrency digital asset wallet that boasts "Top-level security" and instant messaging, a shopping mall where crypto enthusiasts can access dozens of major brands in one place, and an exchange that delivers low transaction fees, high throughput performance and an abundance of liquid trading pairs.