The Current State of the Bitcoin Network and Its Biggest Block

As of Sept. 18, 2018, the average block size on the Bitcoin network is.8MB and the average number of transactions per block is 1609 - so a few eyebrows were raised when a block over 2MB was added to the blockchain on Sept. 5, 2018.

Currently on the Bitcoin network, the average block size is 0.804MB and there are an average of 1609 transactions per block - that is why a block like 540107, which is 2.26MB big but only has 230 transactions included in it, is such an anomaly.

Block 540107 is the largest block on the Bitcoin network to date due in large part to Segwit, a soft fork in the Bitcoin network.

An extended block holds the transaction signature data - which is normally packed into a regular block in a non-Segwit transaction - in a location separate from the block with the transaction data.

Although block 540107 was the largest to date in terms of megabytes, it only had 230 transactions included in it, which is about 86 percent fewer transactions than the average block on the Bitcoin network.

This isn't the first time a big block had far fewer transactions than an average block on the Bitcoin network.

Jan. 20, 2018, was the first time the Bitcoin network saw a block that was over 2MB, when block 505225 came in at 2.17MB, and similar to block 540107, the block had a relatively low number of transactions compared to an average block on the Bitcoin network.

"You would have to ask the miner that mined it - they make that decision. But my guess would be that that is how many filled the block [weight] limit. number of transactions doesn't mean much. You can have one transaction which sends thousands of pieces of BTC dust sent to a single address. The dust takes up more block real estate more data being needed per transaction So what I mean to say is that not all transactions [are equal], some have a larger weight/size due to the amount of inputs [or outputs] there are."

For Alice to pay for her meal and leave a tip, her objective requires the Bitcoin network to add a total of 452 bytes to a block if it is done in two separate transactions.

Although we may be a bit of a ways away from Lightning Network implementation, block 540107 seems to indicate that the Bitcoin network is moving in the direction it needs to move in for Lightning Network as well as other possible scaling solutions to come to fruition.