What is Block Time? - Crypto in Plain English - Episode 142 - by cryptohunt.it

What is Block Time?

Welcome to the cryptohunt jam where we spend one minute a day to explain crypto. In plain english.

Today, let’s explore another one of those cryptic blockchain terms: Block Time. What is it and why does it matter?

Remember that blockchains are just long historic records of every transaction that ever happened. It’s like a family tree - a historical representation of an evolving document.

Computers do the hard work of validating those transactions. They need to make sure that nobody tried to sneak a fake transaction in to inflate their wallet balance - just like you want to make sure that your prankster uncle doesn’t change your grandmother's name on your family tree. In blockchains, when enough computers come to the consensus that the record of transactions up to this point is correct, the network approves it.

Now, this may take a little while to do. Bitcoin is famously slow because it forces computers to solve arbitrary puzzles to deter the bad guys from spamming the network with fake transactions. And because that is a known problem, transactions get bundled in so-called blocks. Instead of doing a puzzle for every single transaction, the puzzle is per block.

And there you have it: Block time is the time it takes for such a block to be fully verified. For example, Bitcoin’s block time is about 10 minutes. And if you know that Bitcoin is limited to about 1500 transactions per block, you can quickly calculate that it can only handle 2.5 transactions per second.

And those 2.5 transactions per second are not a lot at all, but you need to realize 10 mins block time in itself is also a very long time. Standing in line for ice cream and waiting that long for every single person ahead of you to pay would be absolutely no fun!

So, you see - Block Time matters, because even thousands of transactions per second won’t solve a problem if you have to wait for a long time for YOURS to process.

Disclaimer: This podcast references our opinion and is for information purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Do your own research and seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.