2024 has been an exciting year for the BSV Blockchain team, with a key highlight being the first official tests of Teranode. Teranode solves vertical scaling challenges on the BSV blockchain by serving high-volume transaction nodes for enterprise and government use. Whether contracting with nodes or running their own, these clients drive the Teranode initiative.
With several large tests now having taken place Siggi Óskarsson (Teranode Director at BSV Blockchain) recently sat down with the team at CoinGeek to discuss the progress made on the project so far and what to expect heading into 2025.
You can watch the full interview below:
The road so far – Testing, partnerships and hard work
In January, the BSV Blockchain R&D team announced groundbreaking features for Teranode that will significantly boost network efficiency and speed, pushing BSV’s capabilities to one million transactions per second in the not-too-distant future.
Such technological leaps will enable mass transactions on blockchain-based infrastructure, supporting data processing on an unprecedented scale, at a fraction of traditional costs, while laying the foundation for a more secure financial ecosystem.
Teranode testing was subsequently extended and sustained testing on a Proof of Concept implementation began at the end of February 2024, with a full release planned for the first half of 2025.
This is a ground-up rewrite of the BSV blockchain architecture, designed to scale horizontally and provide new microservices for developers, applications, and users. During this period, two tests were completed. One with three nodes and a second test with six nodes, proving that the Teranode network also scales for more participants on the network. ‘This was a proof of concept. So it didn’t do everything that a node should do, but we proved without a doubt that a million transactions per second on a UTXO-based blockchain is possible,’ he said.
As part of this process, protocol custodian BSV Blockchain revealed a more service-oriented approach to the network’s work. The new features include ‘modularised’ functions such as transaction and block validation, plus block assembly into services that run only when required. The Teranode upgrade is critical for the BSV blockchain’s unbounded scaling potential and will deliver faster, more secure and cheaper transactions for all.
‘To make a long story short, the last couple of months have been a little bit painful because we solved the problem before May (2024) and now we just need to fill in all the blanks. This is effectively the 80/20 rule. We are now doing the 20% task which takes 80% of the time and 99% of the pain,’ he joked.
Óskarsson said that this process had been greatly helped by several key partnerships. He noted that throughout the testing process, the Teranode team has used research from nChain and has been working with Aerospike to help with UTXO storage which can scale much more than it is doing so right now. Much of the testing has also been done in collaboration with AWS.
Looking forward to the next six months
Looking forward, Óskarsson again reiterated that he and his team are currently following the 80/20 rule. ‘There is going to be a lot of quality work, we are doing lots of testing, including end-to-end testing and integration testing. We then have to iron out all of the issues that we find.’
He added that Q4 2024 will hopefully see mining commence on the network while Q1 2025 will focus on wrapping up the project, cleaning up documentation and finalising efforts. ‘It is planned to launch in Q1 2025 and we also have SV Node alongside it which is capable of doing tens of thousands of transactions,’ he said.
‘We plan on running Teranode next to SV Node for the rest of 2025. So we are not planning on sunsetting it quickly because we want to make sure that everything is ok,’ he said. Running Teranode and SV Node concurrently is intended to ensure a smooth transition to the new infrastructure while maintaining network stability. Operating both systems side by side allows the BSV blockchain to continue supporting existing applications and services without interruption.
This dual setup provides developers and node operators with the opportunity to gradually adjust to the new architecture, testing and validating their configurations in a live environment. Moreover, running both nodes helps detect and resolve any compatibility issues, ensuring seamless integration.
This phased approach reduces the risks associated with major updates, giving the community time to explore Teranode’s features. Ultimately, the goal is to improve network efficiency and scalability without compromising the reliability and security that define the BSV blockchain.
Looking further ahead
Speaking even longer term, Óskarsson said that he and his team are already looking at how to get to the next million transactions after this. He noted that the team has done some preliminary maths and Teranode is horizontally scalable meaning it could do as much as six million transactions per second with the current architecture and as much as 10 million ‘at a push’.
He added that he and his team aimed to have Teranode commercially ready for a company such as Google by 2026, but that there are other factors to consider when considering corporate partners as not all engineers are familiar with Bitcoin architecture and there is a learning curve involved.
You can watch the full interview with CoinGeek here.
Learn more about the BSV node software roadmap:
- Teranode / SV Node – Teranode Joining the Network FAQ
- Teranode and SV Node: Understanding BSV’s new node software
- Parallel evolution: Teranode and SV Node paving the way for blockchain’s future
