Efficiency of rescaling the state transition to short multi-block times

Investigate the efficiency with which all aspects of the Bitcoin protocol’s state transition function—mapping blockchain state and transactions to a new state—can be rescaled to multi-block times on the order of seconds within the proposed tree hierarchical block structure, with particular emphasis on achieving reliable network-wide information synchronization at such time scales.

Background

In the discussion of making on-chain transactions timely, the authors consider reducing the average multi-block time T from 10 minutes to a few seconds. They note that while smaller blocks and shorter intervals could, in principle, improve timeliness, such changes would push the proposed tree hierarchical block structure into uncharted territory.

They highlight that even if block sizes were reduced proportionally to T, the core question is whether all aspects of the protocol’s state transition—especially information synchronization among nodes—can be efficiently rescaled to operate correctly and robustly at second-level intervals. As an alternative to this uncertain approach, they propose a concurrency-based design to improve timeliness without relying solely on shrinking T.