Internet Computer Reaches 1 Billion Blocks

What Happened?

Just last week, the Internet Computer network reached an important milestone — 1 billion blocks have been created, which means the blockchain has never been stronger and is continually running.

What Does It Mean? Background To Blocks & The Blockchain

A blockchain is a growing list of records called blocks that are securely linked together using cryptography. Generally speaking, each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a timestamp, and transaction data. Because blocks contain information about the block previous to it, they form a chain whereupon each next block reinforces the previous one, thus giving you a blockchain. This facet also makes blockchains resistant to modification, however, this depends on the blockchain at play.

When a blockchain continues producing blocks, such as the Bitcoin blockchain and the Ethereum blockchain, it means the network is alive and running, with miners and validators working hard to fill the demand for transactions and to keep the economy flowing.

Moreover, when it comes to block creation, Bitcoin for example creates the same number of blocks at a consistent rate, about 1 every 10 minutes (no matter the amount of miners). However, this limits the network in being able to scale. Therefore, having a higher block count can solve some of the scalability issues plaguing blockchains today.

What’s The Buzz About?

1 billion is an insanely large number, and it’s a larger block count than other blockchains in existence. For example, the Ethereum blockchain has 15.1 million blocks and the Bitcoin blockchain has 745,000. So the Internet Computer reaching 1 billion puts it at the #1 position, which makes it convenient to brag about. This is the main buzz, however, there’s a deeper implication.

What Does It Mean For The Internet Computer?

First, as blockchains have become a popular method to do payments and other P2P transactions, there’s seen an equivalent increase in the need for these blockchains to scale. In fact, it’s this block size and block creation factor that is most limiting to Bitcoin. However, there are other blockchains that are much more scalable, for example the Internet Computer.

The Internet Computer’s blockchain is also slightly different from your typical PoW and PoS chains. Mainly, similar to Avalanche, the Internet Computer has subnets, which allow for off-the-charts scaling and the subsequent creation of more blockchains (= more blocks). So the Internet Computer reaching 1 billion blocks means that the network can successfully scale out the blockchain to meet the demand required by the different applications, services, and transactions happening on the network.

The apps and services running on the Internet Computer also require more blocks because it’s not just smart contract data but the entire frontend and backend that are all on chain, so the IC has to add more blocks to hold the data.