Blockchain Network Congestion - What?

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It is no news that we have been hearing of congestion in networks even physically where there is a traffic congestion preventing the movement of vehicle at the fast pace. A congested network is when lot of users are trying to perform a particular function at a particular time which may allow the server to go down.

Network Congestion

In relation to blockchain, network congestion occurs when the number of transactions on a network at seeds its capacity to process these transactions which may be due to volatility in the market or block time and size which are intrinsic characteristics of a network.

It is more like several use as trying to login to a site at a particular time minutes or second which is a both the number that server can accept per second or minute. The capacity of the network has been reached and exceeded which can lead to slower confirmation in transactions, poor user experience and increase in transaction fees.

** To understand what this means, we need to understand the process through which blocks I added to a blockchain**.

A blockchain consists of a chain of blocks which are confirmed before being added to a chain. These blocks contains transaction data created by users and a propagated across a decentralized network of several nodes which stores up a copy of the blockchain.

There are some concepts that play a part in a network's ability to process transactions. These concepts are mempool, candidate blocks, finality and longest chain. A mempool is the collection of transactions that are not confirmed, waiting to be added to the next Block.

Transactions that are confirmed are removed from the mempool. The candidate blocks are the ones validators proposed to be added on a blockchain. These blocks haven't been included in the blockchain and there are unconfirmed transactions.

For a candidate block to be confirmed, it must be validated according to the blockchain's consensus mechanism. When a block receives enough attestations, its transitions from a candidate block to one that is confirmed. Finality is when a transaction can no longer be changed or reverse and this happens when a transaction have been received, validated and added to the block.

It remains permanently recorded there, unaltered. The finality of transactions increases with the total number of blocks confirmed. One may ask what really causes this congestion in blockchain network.

The causes are clear and visible. As stated earlier, network congestion in a blockchain occurs when the network exceeds the network's capacity to process them. When such happens, you can say that there is increased demand just the increase in the demand to operate a site causes congestion in that site at a particular time.

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Demand can be increased when there is increased transactions driven by price volatilities which leads to a surge in transaction activities or mass adoptions cycles. A more people submit transactions to the blockchain, the number of transactions unconfirmed in the mempool can exceed what can be included in a single block. This is also as a result of block time and size.

When block size is small, it's limit the number of transactions a block can include. For example; bitcoin had a block size of 1 MB. As of 2018, it increased to approximately 4 MB. If the total number of transactions submitted exceeds the limit of a blockchain, it brings about network congestion.

When the block time is slow, it limits the rate at which blocked are added to a blockchain. If transactions are being created at a much faster rate and volume, there will be an increased transaction.

Consequences

It can result to delay transaction confirmation times which can cause frustration for users as user transaction may not be confirmed for days or even weeks or months. This network congestion also bring about increased fee and slow confirmation times which reduces usability of the blockchain. It can also lead to volatility in the market. If there are many users trying to sell a crypto but the network is too congested to do so, users may attempt to offload their Holdings quickly.

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To alleviate network congestion, block 5 must be increased which allows more transaction to be processed the Block. A block time should also be reduced which allows the network to purchase transactions faster. While network congestion poses a major challenge, there is a working on the system to prevent this.

Disclaimer :Any financial and crypto market information provided in this post was written for informational purposes only and does not constitute 100% investment advice. It's just basic knowledge every crypto trader or investor should have