A brief history of Bitcoin expansion that left the public confused

In the early days of Bitcoin, there was no 1M limit on the block size. Satoshi Nakamoto set the block size to 1M for the security and stability of the Bitcoin system and to prevent the Bitcoin system from being attacked. At that time, there were few Bitcoin users and there was no congestion problem in Bitcoin transactions. Bitcoin was born on January 5, 2009. To date, there are 400,000 blocks, each of which is only 1M, and the maximum size is no more than 400G. Even a laptop can download all nodes.

In the second half of 2013 , the price of Bitcoin soared, reaching new highs, and the number of users continued to grow. The problem of Bitcoin transaction congestion began to be exposed, but then the People's Bank of China issued a 12.5 notice, and Bitcoin began to enter a long winter. The problem of Bitcoin transaction congestion did not attract any attention.

In the summer of 2015 , the Bitcoin Core development team proposed to expand the block size to 20M, but this was strongly opposed by Chinese miners because the domestic Internet speed could not catch up with that of some developed countries in Europe and the United States. This would cause Chinese miners to quit mining, and China plays a pivotal role in the global Bitcoin mining market. The plan was eventually aborted.

At the end of 2015 , Gavin Andresen and Mike Hearn, the successors of Satoshi Nakamoto, launched the BITCOIN XT expansion plan to solve the problem of 1M block capacity being too small, but the plan did not gain the approval of the other three Bitcoin core developers. The plan set the block size to 8M, while the Chinese network can only accommodate 2-3M. Chinese miners also rejected the plan, and some other well-known Bitcoin companies did not express their views.

When Gavin Andresen was lonely and helpless and in urgent need of support and approval, the fake Satoshi Nakamoto Craig Steven Wright appeared, and Gavin Andresen chose to support him. In the end, Gavin lost the power to merge the code. The Bitcoin Core development team kicked out Gavin Andresen and Mike Hearn, who were expansionists, from the team.

In 2016 , developer Jonathan came to China and conducted a series of field network performance tests on block size. The conclusion was that Gavin's 8M block expansion plan was too radical, few people accepted it, and China's network could not reach it. Therefore, developer Jonathan and others improved the BITCOIN XT expansion plan and launched the Bitcoin classic expansion plan, setting the block size to 2M to cater to Chinese miners.

However, Bitcoin Core, the core development team of Bitcoin, is opposed to this. They still use their influence to insist on the main chain block size of 1M unchanged, and adopt the solution of isolated verification + lightning network to solve the problem of Bitcoin transaction congestion. However, Chinese miners insist on expanding the main chain and reject this solution. The Bitcoin community faces a serious risk of splitting. In order to solve this problem, on February 21, 2016, the Bitcoin community held a roundtable meeting on Bitcoin expansion in Hong Kong (the meeting was led by the Core team). At the meeting, Chinese miners and the Core team reached a consensus, commonly known as the "Hong Kong Consensus". This is the result of mutual compromise between Chinese miners and the Core team. Chinese miners refused to upgrade the Bitcoin classic version and supported isolated verification and lightning network in exchange for Core's commitment to expand the main chain by 2M.

Later, Core refused to implement the signed "Hong Kong Consensus" and still insisted on setting the main chain block size to 1M. Chinese miners also refused to support the Core team's isolated verification + lightning network Bitcoin soft fork solution, and instead supported the Bitcoin Unlimited (BU) Bitcoin expansion solution. Core used its influence and power to suppress speech abroad and used water army attacks to suppress opponents. For a while, foreign public opinion was one-sided, but Core encountered a nail in China. The so-called BU party and SW party appeared in China. The two factions continued to argue, and each won and lost, but overall BU had a certain advantage in public opinion.

The focus of the dispute between BU and SW is not only a technical debate, but more of a dispute over rights and the future development roadmap of Bitcoin. BU continues Satoshi Nakamoto's idea that miners maintain the security and stability of the Bitcoin system; while SW refuses to expand the main chain and transfers part of the main chain's functions to the lightning network to solve the problem of Bitcoin transaction congestion. As time goes by, the main chain will gradually be marginalized, the lightning network will assume more of the main chain's functions, and the rights of miners will gradually be lost. The lightning network can easily be controlled by some companies, and the trend of centralization is more obvious. In fact, two of the three members of the Bitcoin Core development team (Bitcoin Core) belong to Blockstream, which has also been criticized by the Bitcoin community, who believe that Core has become the spokesperson for Blockstream.