Is the civil war among Bitcoin bulls really over?

Author: Cleopatra

About a year ago, a debate over Bitcoin sparked the so-called Bitcoin Civil War, which captured the public’s attention. More than a year has passed since the war began, and although there has been no public announcement, the smoke of the war seems to have subsided with the emergence of Bitcoin competitors such as Ehereum and a banking alliance to continue to develop Bitcoin.

In the spring of 2015, Gavin Andresen (a core figure in Bitcoin, the chief developer, who controls the open source code of Bitcoin and designs the related production software) made a series of remarks, estimating that the transaction volume will increase in the future, and the daily transaction volume will reach 200,000 by the beginning of 2016, which triggered a big discussion about Bitcoin. Gavin's remarks had limitations, and as time went on, this small discussion about the scope of Bitcoin development evolved into a serious debate among all parties, and the war was about to break out.

Controversy over Bitcoin capacity

Theymos is the main regulator of R-coin, once the "home" of the Bitcoin community, it first established the audit system for the discussion of Bitcoin's resilience and promoted this system by banning many long-term major users, which also led to the emergence of R-coin and bitcoin. Coinwallet.eu began sending messages to the Bitcoin blockchain channel to show what would happen once capacity was saturated.

However, the greatest harm comes from the defamation of individuals and companies. Mike Hearn (co-founder of Bitcoin, who worked at Google for 8 years and later joined the development of the Bitcoin system full-time due to Gavin Andresen and other reasons) became the first victim of this war after being severely slandered by one "camp" and has since started working for the R3 Banking Alliance (led by the financial technology company R3, an alliance of major global banking consortiums, with the goal of researching and formulating a global framework based on blockchain technology). In turn, Gregory Maxwell (a core developer of Bitcoin) was disliked by the other camp and was even nicknamed Saruman, the magician who betrayed to Sauron's camp in the Lord of the Rings. Because in real life, he also left his camp and joined elsewhere.

Blockstream has been slandered so much that it has become a bad word now. On the other hand, Coinbase has also been hurt by the other side. An article complaining about not getting a satisfactory response from them received 3,500 points of R coins, which is obviously a shady operation. Today, this debate has become so controversial that many people choose to be neutral because no matter which side they choose, they will be slandered by the other side. Fortunately, things have improved. R coins used to be the target of concentrated criticism from individuals and companies, but now they have expanded their functions in many aspects, and discussions on various aspects of Bitcoin and the verification-free discussion format have given them their own advantages. Twitter, which used to be the main battlefield for people's debates, has also become quieter.

A natural truce

The mainstream view is that this debate has resolved many issues that need to be discussed, and both sides of the debate have begun to realize and acknowledge each other's views. It seems that the war has naturally subsided.

Many people think that both sides of the debate have their own reasons. The blockchain information network shows that the size of Bitcoin's blockchain has reached nearly 60GB. Based on the current 1MB per minute, it has achieved a growth rate of 5GB per month and 50GB per year. A faster growth rate will exceed many nodes, reduce the number of validators, and investors' behavior cannot be recorded. For example, if the number of investors increases, it will not be verified. On the other hand, there are many potential changes. For example, streamlining and partitioning will reduce storage costs. In a limited network space, few people can complete transactions, which has also hindered the development of the network space and will face the crisis of stagnation and replacement.

Segwit has reached a compromise, one of the goals of which is to increase the transaction capacity to 1.6-1.7MB, working towards the goal of 4MB transaction capacity in 2017. So both sides can say they have "won" in this so-called war, large area supporters can say that this has guaranteed the growth trend, and small area supporters can also say that they have controlled the capacity within a safe range.

So now is the time to lay down our weapons and reunite. The Bitcoin industry should avoid slandering individuals or companies and act quickly. Regardless of Mike Hear's views on blockchain or other aspects, the damage he suffered is a blow to the industry. Because the active Bitcoin SPV wallet system he proposed can support the use of millions of users, greatly expanding the transaction capacity of Bitcoin.

We need more developers, especially experienced ones, and losing any of them should be a cause for concern. Forget the rhetoric, companies like Coinbase can even single-handedly increase Bitcoin's influence in Silicon Valley and promote Bitcoin's use to inexperienced users. We should encourage these companies' efforts to increase Bitcoin's inclusion.

Similarly, no matter what George Marxwell thinks about the Bitcoin area, whether he is right or wrong, his views have had a profound impact on the industry. From the company's business plan, it can be seen that Blockstream is developing something very novel. We hope that both sides of the debate can exert a force greater than two, rather than separating and hurting each other.

Although the capacity problem will not disappear, we still need to respect each other's views. Respect other people's opinions, put forward opinions when necessary, seek common ground while reserving differences, and develop together, so that we can make progress together and better serve users.

Let’s declare the end of the Bitcoin civil war

Bitcoin Classic currently has nearly 6% of Bitcoin production, enough to oppose 95% of the disagreements. In my opinion, as Bitcoin decentralizes and develops, this number will continue to grow to 26%. The limitation of the number of customers will threaten the innovation and team thinking ability of small groups, which will lead to reduced activity and creativity. For example, the Bitcoin Unlimited company development team created xThin Blocks to reduce the block propagation speed by 90%, so that 1mb block can be propagated in milliseconds.

Bitcoin Classic has created a title-first search model that is more secure than existing methods. Bitcoin Core is developing segwit. This is a new, vibrant ecosystem full of creativity and ideas, where skilled developers serve more than one team and no longer need to be limited to a single team culture.

The rich variety of customers increases the flexibility of Bitcoin, making it more difficult to grasp the trend of market development and increasing the fragmentation of the market. The Bitcoin industry should be happy to see such changes, because Bitcoin is further away from the center of controversy.

Although we hold different views and serve different clients, we are all part of the same team. So our first priority is to respect each other and work together. What separates us is actually our glue. With the emergence of Ethereum, many banking consortiums wanting to develop their own blockchains, negative growth in Europe and stratospheric inflation in Venezuela, we are facing not only challenges but also opportunities. We should face these challenges positively and unite to seize opportunities with greater strength, rather than standing in different camps and seriously hurting each other. Therefore, I think it is time to "truce".

JPM compiled from

Crypto Coins News, Is Bitcoin`s Civil War Over?, by Andrew Quentson.