⭐ Merited by suchmoon (7)
The block interval of 10 minutes was probably simply a very conservative guesstimate.
Keep in mind Bitcoin was pioneering the field, it then took the first generation of alts to tinker with the basic parameters to see what works and what doesn't. Turns out Litecoin's block interval of 2.5 minutes works just as fine. Some alts reduced their block interval into the tens of seconds or even less with... not so good results. Orphan rate becomes a real problem at that time scale and needs to be dealt with (e.g. Ethereum paying subsidy for uncle blocks), otherwise your coin will be quickly forgotten.
Also you gotta think ahead a bit -- between Earth and Mars you have a data roundtrip time of 6 to 9 minutes!
That's just a sneaky way to increase blocksize
Keep in mind Bitcoin was pioneering the field, it then took the first generation of alts to tinker with the basic parameters to see what works and what doesn't. Turns out Litecoin's block interval of 2.5 minutes works just as fine. Some alts reduced their block interval into the tens of seconds or even less with... not so good results. Orphan rate becomes a real problem at that time scale and needs to be dealt with (e.g. Ethereum paying subsidy for uncle blocks), otherwise your coin will be quickly forgotten.
Also you gotta think ahead a bit -- between Earth and Mars you have a data roundtrip time of 6 to 9 minutes!
Moving BTC to a 5 minute blockspeed would literally double it's transaction capacity.
That's just a sneaky way to increase blocksize