The debate over Bitcoin development path: Roger Ver debates with Core supporter Tone Vays

This week, many Bitcoin enthusiasts attended the Anarchapulco conference in Acapulco, Mexico, to discuss topics such as freedom and Bitcoin. During a live broadcast of The Crypto Show during the conference, a heated debate on Bitcoin scaling took place between Bitcoin advocate Tone Vays and Bitcoin.com CEO Roger Ver. The two well-known figures in the Bitcoin community had very different views on Bitcoin transaction fees, hard forks, soft forks, and scaling solutions.

The live debate began with Vays and Ver describing their backgrounds in the Bitcoin economy, and at the end of the introduction, Ver explained why he joined the cryptocurrency community and why he believes in the initial direction of Bitcoin, which, in his opinion, was originally open to everyone, but its openness has gradually been weakened.

Two very different visions for Bitcoin

“The whole topic of this debate is that the goals and roadmap of Bitcoin are being changed by a group of people who are much closer to Bitcoin than I am, and I find that very sad,” Bitcoin investor Roger Ver explained, “because I want to see Bitcoin become a currency that anyone around the world can use to transact with anyone else without any permission. Bitcoin’s ability to do that is being undermined, and I’m very concerned about that.”

As soon as he finished speaking, the host of the Cryptocurrency Show asked: "Tone, don't you want everyone to use Bitcoin?"

“Of course,” Vays replied, “but I think we need to do it in the most secure way possible, and the most secure way is what the smartest developers out there think of, and I believe that’s the core development team that created Segwit. They’ve brought us all the way here, and I trust their judgment. We can talk about more details, but I’m a big supporter of Segwit, and that’s the direction I’d like to see moving forward.”

Roger quickly responded, “Besides trusting authority, do you have any other reasons why you feel SegWit is the right way forward?”

"They are more technical than I am, I don't have the ability to read code, and there is a large decentralized group of developers in the community," Vays responded. "It's like saying, no, sorry, I don't think the people in the town should comment on how the town's nuclear reactors should be run and how they should be powered. I think it's the right thing to let nuclear engineers make decisions. I outsourced my technical decisions to a very decentralized group of developers. I think the SegWit they came up with is the most secure and the best, and there are over 100 people working on it."

Ver believes that the current Bitcoin's longer confirmation times and higher transaction fees are "absolutely crazy"

“I think it’s important to look at the history of Bitcoin,” Roger explained. “So Bitcoin was created as a peer-to-peer digital cash, Satoshi created the project, he left and handed it over to Gavin Andresen. At that time, I and a few other people were involved in Bitcoin and we were very excited about it. Bitcoin is doing very well and everyone is excited about the price of Bitcoin now, but if Bitcoin was priced at about the same price as it was four years ago, I don’t think everyone would be excited.

If you look at the history, Gavin Andresen did a great job leading the project. We knew scaling was going to be a problem, and he tried to solve it. And a group of people who recently came into the Bitcoin project, they were absolutely horrible to Gavin Andresen, and they banded together to kick Gavin out of the project. And Gavin was the one that the Bitcoin founders chose to believe in. And then some of the newcomers told us that they think it's a good thing if Bitcoin transactions are very expensive, they think it's a good thing if Bitcoin blocks are always full, and they think it's okay for everyone to bid for block space. This is absolutely crazy, and people will use other things besides Bitcoin.

We need to make Bitcoin the best, most convenient, most usable system that people around the world can use. That means fast confirmations, low risk of double spends, and low transaction fees. A bunch of people came in and told us they think if Bitcoin transactions cost $100, everyone would still use Bitcoin. That's absolutely crazy because people will use something else."

Vays: “I would rather Bitcoin be used more for large transactions, like $100,000”

Tone responded to Roger’s statement, saying: “I can’t comment on this. I always say this, look, if the status quo remains and we fail to achieve any expansion, Bitcoin transaction fees may reach $100 per transaction. I don’t want Bitcoin to go to this point, but if we don’t find a scaling solution, a Bitcoin transaction fee will reach $100. I personally have no problem with it. This is my honest expression.

I don't want a no-brainer solution to Bitcoin's scaling problem, I'd rather it not be fixed. I'd rather Bitcoin be used more for large transactions, like $100,000, but at least it would be secure, there wouldn't be forks, and there wouldn't be a need to explain why there are two Bitcoins. That's my choice. I want Bitcoin to scale, and I think Segwit is going to be very secure. But if the core developers compromise and do a hard fork (which they have tested and believe is unsafe), if they compromise in any way or shape and implement a hard fork (which I don't think they will do), I will lose my confidence in the core development team. I'd rather keep the status quo, have transaction fees be high, and have Bitcoin be used for $100,000 or thousands of dollars, and maybe people will be able to afford $100 transactions."

You can find the full debate between the two in this video.

What do you think about the current state of Bitcoin's scaling problem? Which of Tone's and Roger's opinions do you agree with more? Feel free to share your thoughts.