Scaling Bitcoin

Abstract

In our paper, we aim to give a detailed insight into the Bitcoin scaling debate and discuss some of the most relevant proposals. If Bitcoin shall become a widespread method of payment, the basic protocol introduced by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008 has to be enhanced with new technical concepts. We focus on a block size increase, Segwit, payment channels and the corresponding payment channel networks. These topics are by far not the only concepts that aim to improve Bitcoin's scalability. To our knowledge, however, they are the most advanced ones which have played a dominant role in the scaling debate.