I'm curious why Bitcoin's inter-block time is 10 minutes while Ethereum's is only about 15 seconds. Given that both Bitcoin and Ethereum use the PoW consensus algorithm, why not reduce the inter-block time in Bitcoin to match that of Ethereum and thus increase system throughput?
The Bitcoin block time was chosen to make sure disk space would not become an issue. Another reason is to minimize orphan blocks. Which is a block that has been solved within the blockchain network but was not accepted due to a lag within the network itself. So the block is valid but broadcasted to the network too late. In the Bitcoin blockchain these orphan blocks go to waste, as the miner that mined it gets no reward for it. Which is a waste of computing power.
Bitcoin whitpaper (2008): A block header with no transactions would be about 80 bytes. If we suppose blocks are generated every 10 minutes, 80 bytes * 6 * 24 * 365 = 4.2MB per year. With computer systems typically selling with 2GB of RAM as of 2008, and Moore’s Law predicting current growth of 1.2GB per year, storage should not be a problem even if the block headers must be kept in memory.
Also along with the wastage, if multiple nodes start generating the same block simultaneously or within a short period of time, this will lead into multiple and more frequent bitcoin forks, which is unhealthy for the network.
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