When Satoshi Nakamoto invented Bitcoin in 2008, he had a vision to scale it unboundedly with a fraction of the cost that competing payment companies, Visa and Mastercard, have.?
Fifteen years have passed, but the vision for Bitcoin has yet to scale the way Satoshi intends. Leading blockchain networks have limited the block size to 7 transactions per second (TPS), while the likes of Ethereum impede scalability with its high gas fee rates—ultimately hindering the unbounded scaling Satoshi has in mind for the technology.???
In today’s world, we have faster internet, better connectivity, and more advanced computers that help achieve Satoshi’s vision for a highly scalable Bitcoin blockchain, the “Teranode.”???
Importance of Unbounded Scaling in Blockchain?
Before we delve into what the Teranode is about and how it differs from previous iterations, let’s first look at the importance of scaling blockchain.???
Blockchain technology is often intertwined with Bitcoin, the digital asset backed by the technology. However, Bitcoin and blockchain differ on many scales. To explain it, look at Bitcoin as an element of blockchain, much like how the internet is used to send and receive emails:?
The internet is for emails as well as web browsing.?
Blockchain is to Bitcoin transactions and payments.?
Bitcoin blockchain keeps a timestamped record of payments and other digital events, acting like a bank statement with records of the data and the time the transactions are made. These lists of records are grouped into “blocks,” and the contents of the blocks are used as input to a mathematical calculation. Each block has an identifier called the “block header,” which is linked together—and this makes up the blockchain.???
As the world shifts to everything online, an unbounded scalable blockchain that can accommodate the recording and processing of millions of transactions is a top priority, especially since the technology is initially designed to cater to financial institutions.???
Put simply, a blockchain that can achieve high transactions (TPS) per second means it can also be used for mass usage while promoting security, transparency, and auditability.?
What is Teranode??
Engineered by the BSV Association for scalability and growth of BSV blockchain, the Teranode acts as a major upgrade of the Bitcoin node software. It aims to push for more transactional activities as possible, enabling BSV blockchain to scale horizontally and operate at a speed of over 1.1 million TPS.???
Theoretically speaking, credit card companies have an average of 5,000 TPS and a peak of 80,000 TPS globally, while the Bank of England’s digital pound has a minimum of 30,000 TPS and a maximum of 100,000 TPS. Teranode, on the other hand, is capable of a minimum of 1 million TPS up to 5 million TPS.????
Teranode will not only carry 10x higher transaction volume than Visa and Mastercard, but it will also do so at a lower cost.???
“The testing of Teranode represents our commitment to unlocking the full potential of the BSV blockchain. With unparalleled scalability, stability, and support for safe and instant transactions, it has the potential to serve as the next-generation upgrade to a public blockchain that enables complete enterprise and governmental adoption.” – Siggi Oskarsson, Teranode Director at BSV Association?
3 Key Innovations of Teranode?
1. Microservices Support?
Aside from scaling unboundedly, the highly anticipated Teranode enables microservices.??
Teranode offers 14 microservices, including node services such as propagation and transaction validation, block assembly, subtree, and block validation.??
One key innovation the system upgrade has is its pre-approval process, where instead of waiting for a transaction to be approved for 10 minutes after its confirmation, senders and recipients can clear the transactions in real-time.?
2. Resolving block size limit issues?
With its block size limits of 1MB per block, BTC needs to undergo an increase in coin price. In the worst-case scenario, its network had to go through a protocol change. Teranode addresses these issues with its overlay services and SPV solutions, which enable more transactions per block.?
With this upgrade, BSV will remain a stable and secure protocol, fit for purpose for the demands of modern enterprise and government use.?
3. AI Efficiency Improvements?
Once complete, Teranode will enable BSV to process vast amounts of data. Hence, it can ensure artificial intelligence (AI) applications will run more efficiently with verifiable and auditable information.???
Who is Leading the Technical Testing??
BSV Association is heading the technical testing for the Teranode, which has ongoing tests in two- and three-node groups spread across North America, Europe, and Asia and will be completed over the next few months.??
The association has partnered with Aerospike—an industry leader recognized for its high-performance NoSQL databases—to deliver the technical testing for the Teranode update. Aerospike’s database infrastructure ensures real-time data processing, enabling companies and organizations to make real-time decisions cost-effectively.??
Aerospike works with the modernization of leading apps and firms like Adobe, DBS Bank, PayPal, and Sony Interactive Entertainment. Meanwhile, the BSV Association is involved in creating a wide range of apps and tools in accounting, analytics, AI, asset management, e-commerce, education, enterprise, and more.??
How the Latest Teranode Differs from Previous Iterations?
Projected to go live in the first half of 2022, the first iteration of Teranode took the current SV nodes’ components and pulled them into a pipeline configuration. It was a success. However, the new Teranode team encountered some components that were challenging to scale horizontally.??
Fast forward to 2024, the Teranode has sustained testing on a proof of concept in February with a new approach, but it still incorporates the SV Node as the monolith node.??
The new version of Teranode handles Merkle Trees—the data structure that immutably records every Bitcoin transaction.??
Merkle Trees consists of individual transactions in each block that are segmented into “subtrees.” Each transaction header hashed in these subtrees returns to the original block hash, where they’ll be validated.?
Unbounded scaling with Specialization and SPV?
Two main pillars that make it possible for the system to scale are specialized nodes and simplified payment verification or SPV.?
As described by BSV Association’s Head of Infrastructure Jake Jones at the 2023 London Blockchain Conference, specialized nodes pull functionalities and services away from nodes with the exception of adding blocks to the chain.??
What the specialized nodes do is add more flexibility, which aids to the scalability of Teranode and allows the team to create another layer, such as overlay nodes.??
Meanwhile, SPV is a crucial part of the Teranode design because it allows peer-to-peer transaction validation without having to look at the content of each block.??
Blockchain Scalability and Innovation?
As the web gets populated with billions of data around the world, having a blockchain that can scale limitlessly is inevitable in this Web3 world.???
A global blockchain that can handle millions of digital transactions, can scale unboundedly, and is available today is what we need.?
