I made some reddit posts that recently have been interpreted as my being in favour of small blocks and not raising the block size limit.
This is not my position at all. I’m making the important case that Bitcoin cannot rely on on-chain scaling alone. Satoshi mentioned Moore’s law in the white paper. These were very compelling comments, and for my first few years following Bitcoin it seemed reasonable that Bitcoin could scale on-chain indefinitely.
Unfortunately global propagation is harder than it first seemed when blocks were tiny, and on-chain scaling is not as viable as first thought. Moore’s law alone is not our scaling saviour.
That said I’m not opposed to a hard forks to increase the block size – I think they are necessary. My concern is at hard forks being seen as an easy solution to scaling.
If I seem like more of a small blocker than I am it’s because I’m trying in my mind to balance out the community by pushing the small block cause. I want people to realise that on chain scaling has real implications and is not a long term solution.
I’m incredibly sympathetic to the arguement that we need Bitcoin to be attractive, and low transactional fees are something that first attracted me to Bitcoin. However we’ve also got to be careful of precedent.
The block size debate is more than technical – it is about the politics and future direction of bitcoin.
If we head in the wrong direction and become dependent upon bigger and bigger blocks, there is a genuine risk we embark on a slippery slope and slowly erode what makes Bitcoin special.
I’m not convinced anyone is using Bitcoin at the moment to buy coffee. I’m also sympathetic that we want to make Bitcoin accessible and that lower fees helps the poorest participate, but we need to be cautious.
Bitcoin’s decentralised nature is our democracy, and good democracy requires checks and balances. It might not feel like it at times, but the passionate debate and resistance over changing the status quo is giving us exactly that.
No matter what you think of your opponents, we’re all playing an important role in Bitcoin’s governance. There has never before been anything like it. Fierce debate over monetary policy has taken place behind closed doors throughout most of history, now we all get our say.
I am not opposed to a block size increase, I am opposed to a block size increase being easy. Not because I think bigger blocks will ruin Bitcoin, but because I think lots of block size increases would ruin Bitcoin.
We need to put up a fight against anything that could change what Bitcoin currently is. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t ever change Bitcoin, but that such changes should have stood up to immense scrutiny.
You might be massively in favour of increasing the block size, but you should also be thankful in the face of resistance. If Bitcoin ever becomes easy to change it becomes easy to break.
That’s why I’m simultaneously opposed to a block size increase while also being in favour of one.
Yes I’m a paradox, but I’m quite happy that way.
John Hardy
Longtime Bitcoin advocate.
Email [email protected]
Donations welcome: 1H2zNWjxkaVeeE3yX6uVqng5Qoi6gGvYTE
Latest posts by John Hardy (see all)
- The great P2PK Bitcoin heist. Millions of Bitcoins WILL be stolen, but should we even try to stop it? - 24 Aug 2018
- Follow up: Bitcoin Cash has 51% attack vulnerability double jeopardy - 31 Jul 2018
- Bitcoin rival has a major vulnerability which could help Bitcoin miners to destroy it in 2020 - 30 Jul 2018
