If we want to cap the time of downloading overhead the latest block to say 1%, we need to be able to download the MAX_BLOCKSIZE within 6 seconds on average so that we can spend 99% time hashing.
At 1MB, you would need a ~1.7Mbps connection to keep downloading time to 6s.
At 10MB, 17Mbps
At 100MB, 170Mbps
and you start to see why even 100MB block size would render 90% of the world population unable to participate in mining.
Even at 10MB, it requires investing in a relatively high speed connection.
Thank you for that so much. That is most definitely the clearest explanation I've seen yet. Even if miners sacrificed a few more seconds so the bandwidth requirements weren't as high, you still would only halve the connection speed, making a 10 meg block potentially realistic today.
Something to remember too, is that we are not packing every block with a meg currently. Most are a fraction of that. The maximum block size would be needed for peak TPS until a later date when the transactions get slower.
Something please check my math though, I'll update it on just the 10 meg block.
At 0.0005 minimum transaction fee, on blockchain.info I'm seeing about 0.5 BTC per 250 KB of block size. That would be an additional 20 BTC per block with a fully loaded 10 meg block. Is that not a decent 600USD reason to upgrade your internet connection?
And for those like Hazek who simply want to verify the rules of bitcoin, the requirements of bandwidth for a 10 meg block are any first world DSL connection with plenty to spare.