On Feb 29, BitGo engineer Jameson Lopp tweeted a screenshot of the /r/bitcoin front end page, capturing ironic frustration coming from redditors posting on a board controlled yesteryear Theymos, notorious for censoring whatsoever anti-Core discussions virtually the Bitcoin block size.
The travel yesteryear postal service on the screenshot was titled, “Is at that topographic point a stress exam going on right now?”, the user wondering if testing could travel the drive for dull transaction times. Just below that postal service a redditor stated, “six hours, withal no confirmation alongside 0.001 fee?” At the bottom of the screenshot, a redditor asked for assist cancelling a transaction that wasn’t receiving whatsoever confirmations.
The Block Size Debate is Going Nowhere Fast
These concerns all surfaced for the same reason: blocks are nearing the 1 MB limit. Many people, including Gavin Andresen, guide maintain warned virtually the consequences of the 1 MB block size bound for quite some time. However, Theymos, everyone’s favorite Bitcoin community dictator, has stifled whatsoever conversation regarding raising the block size across all of his social media assets. BitcoinTalk, /r/bitcoin, together with the Bitcoin wiki are all void of news together with data on proposals to hard fork the blockchain to implement bigger blocks.
Consequently, blocks are filling upwardly fast, together with nosotros are nowhere close reaching a truthful consensus on what to produce virtually it.
Although Theymos can’t guide maintain all the blame for the petty politics of the Bitcoin community, he has for sure contributed his fair portion to obstacle to the discussion. His wish to brand Bitcoin a depression volume, high cost payment organisation for huge transactions is the antithesis of what Satoshi meant his network to be: a decentralized payment solution capable of revolutionizing global finance.
A little minority of the community side alongside Theymos’s together with wish to proceed little blocks. Their arguments make from mining profitability to node centralization, which they stand upwardly yesteryear despite extensive analyses that suggest block size has nil to produce alongside whatsoever of these issues.
This minority has succeeded inward gumming upwardly the consensus-based, democratic procedure of changing the Bitcoin protocol. Core developers guide maintain been likewise afraid to implement changes to the protocol because of potential backlash from the community, together with BIPs that suggest hard forks to execute block size increases guide maintain been censored together with contested.
The faction dedicated to stopping block size increases wish off-chain solutions to scalability, arguing that things similar the Lightning Network and someone accounting volition alleviate the stress lay on the blockchain. But these alternatives are centralized, together with at their substance are no ameliorate than the fiscal institutions that Bitcoin was meant to replace. Off chain transactions require trust inward the fellowship asset your coins, making them no unlike from banks that handgrip our money. The Lightning Network, as Gavin Andresen has pointed out, is vaporware at this point, together with volition non travel functional until long subsequently bloated blocks brand Bitcoin unusable.
Despite prove together with well-worded arguments, politics together with obstructionism abound. Very petty progress has been made. Even the consensus reached at a Feb 21 roundtable news is inward jeopardy because of community drama surrounding the infamous Blockstream. And piece the conversation is withal generally dry ground to a halt, blocks are filling up, together with people are complaining virtually it inward the same house where the naysayers said nosotros had nil to worry about. The prototype of irony.
Even to a greater extent than baffling is the fact that people are trying to blame wallet providers on dull transaction times instead of the bloated blockchain. They say that wallets aren’t doing a practiced plenty project at calculating fees, resulting depression fees that lay transactions on the dorsum burner. But is it actually the wallets’ fault? Maybe they don’t produce a practiced project at calculating fees.
Even so, improving wallets would travel a temporary fix; fifty-fifty alongside the most efficient fee calculations possible, most people volition eventually larn priced out of the marketplace position equally fees skyrocket. This isn’t a wallet issue inward whatsoever feel of the word, it is a protocol number existence gridlocked yesteryear unnecessary politics.
As sensationalist equally it sounds, the fate of the entire Bitcoin ecosystem may really good depend on the outcome of the block size debate. One solution volition allow for blockchain scalability to save decentralization; the other solution volition plough Bitcoin into a trust-based, permissioned payment system, together with it may non fifty-fifty travel able to make that inward time.
Something has to happen, together with the recent drama surrounding scalability together with consensus on Bitcoin Classic suggests that something needs to come about fast.
