Dixon: Sub-second transaction finality is impossible in proof-of-work systems
Chris Dixon · Seven Trends in Blockchain Computing (Spring 2019) · May 8, 2019 · at 16:23
Chris Dixon (General Partner at a16z) discusses technical latency limits of proof-of-work blockchains like Bitcoin compared to proof-of-stake architectures.
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“You just simply can't have, ah, like sub-second transaction finality in a proof of work system. Like, so Bitcoin, like you really need to wait, you know, each block is 10 minutes, and it has to do with the coordination among the network, and the network propagation latency and things. But also it's a probabilistic method, so you really have to wait probably 60 minutes, if not longer. And from a user experience point of view, you know, if I send you, and it's the same with Ethereum, say it's proof of work, you know, and you go, you, if you download Coinbase wallet, And you try to use some of these apps. There's a lot of really cool apps. It's early, but you got to wait. 30 seconds for like, after you click a button. That's not a modern user experience. And the only way we're going to get to modern user experience is through these kind of proof of stake systems.”
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