Long-awaited Bitcoin Classic client aims to solve transaction scalability issues

The Bitcoin Classic team has released the client 1.2 beta on GitHub. This version includes several important updates, one of which is TransFlex, which is said to solve交易延展性（transaction malleability） problem.

Classic new client solves transaction scalability issue

Although this new version of the client adds a lot of new features, Classic’s post on GitHub focuses on only two points: Transflex and Xthin blocks .

The post was made by Classic developer Tom Zander, who said they would conduct comprehensive testing before officially releasing the client.

I am very excited to share this news with you! Bitcoin Classic 1.2 is coming soon. The Beta version is now available and can be downloaded from the following address. 1.2 successfully adds a lot of new features, fixes many bugs, and makes improvements. We will carefully check all new features before releasing them to the official version.

Advancing Bitcoin

The Classic team believes that the new TransFlex feature can completely solve the problem of transaction scalability and there is no need for Segregated Verification (SegWit) at all. TransFlex can remove the signature after the block transaction is confirmed. After testing, they said that this mode can bring a 75% capacity reduction.

If this is true, then the Lightning Network, which aims to solve the Bitcoin block capacity problem, is also expected to become a reality. In addition, Zander reiterated that TransFlex can do what isolated verification cannot do.

Zander said TransFlex is a better solution to the problem of transaction scalability because it creates less “technical debt” ^[1] , which means the system will be more complete.

Zander expressed his doubts about Segregated Witness:

The problem is that segregated witness will lead to a lot of technical debt. Technical debt refers to the system design that the development team did not perfect at the beginning, which eventually consumes more development time. The word "debt" is very appropriate because people will gradually realize that the cost of using transactions is almost like paying interest.

The battle over block size expansion continues

In addition to Transflex, Classic's updates also include ultra-thin blocks. This feature is said to solve the delay problem of Bitcoin block propagation. In simple terms, ultra-thin blocks will only send a small part of the data in the block before rebuilding the block through the node memory pool (mempool), which can reduce the capacity.

Over the past two years, the community has been unable to reach a consensus on the block capacity. Currently, the Bitcoin block capacity is 1MB, which greatly limits the number of transactions. The block capacity expansion dispute has also led to the establishment of two major camps.

Big block proponents want to achieve on-chain expansion by changing the protocol to increase block capacity, while the other side prefers off-chain or side-chain solutions that do not fork the blockchain.

Notes (↵ returns to text)

1. Technical debt refers to the debt owed by the development team when the development team chooses a solution that is easy to implement from the perspective of short-term effects when designing or selecting an architecture, but in the long run, this solution will bring more negative effects. ↵