In the ongoing scaling debate, I wonder why is the discussion focused solely on the block size.
To my understanding, decreasing the difficulty, either statically or dynamically, has the same effect, of increasing the transaction-confirmation rate.
I don't know if such a thing can be done with a soft work, but for those advocating a hard fork, why not a fork that decreases difficulty?
Can anyone enlighten me?
making blocks average to say 1minute means. that 12.5btc is made every 1min average instead of 10min average (or as amph notes 2016 blocks in 1.4 days instead of 14 days)
which results in the reward halving event every 145 days instead of 4 years.
which means all bitcoins will be mined in about 12 years as oppose to 120 years.
so to mess around with reducing block reward to 1.25 for 1min blocks. and then mess with the reward halving and so on to correct things back to scale, takes alot more coding than you think.. plus breaking a lot more fundamental rules..
ALSO
whether its 10 minutes or 1minute.. the people that say "10mins is too long" usually are buying things where even 1min would still be too long.
EG queuing up at a grocery store checkout. standing there, waiting a minute is still too long.
as many people know seeing someone count their change for 40 seconds instead of just swiping a card infuriates people.
dont believe me.
next time you are at a grocery store.. just stand there and do absolutely nothing for 60 seconds. and then look at the people behind you.
dont beleive me.
day trade on an exchange. see a good price and instead of hitting the order button.. just sit there for 60 seconds.. and then look to see if the good offer is still there.
now when it comes to data movement.
whether its 4032 blocks of 1mb each a month.. 4032 blocks of 10mb each a month
whether its 4032 blocks of 1mb each a month.. 40320 blocks of 1mb each a month
the bandwidth of both 'more data' is the same 40gb and anyone complaining about internet data caps will still run into the same problem
and as other have mentioned if blocks are being created once a minute, by the time they get passed to a node, verified, passed to another node, verified (the relay propagation) this can cause alot more congestion, orphans, rejects and other issues.
this is where pools who think they have won the fastest block, realise someone else beat them by milliseconds, and as such they end up wasting time and not getting as much income..