Author: Michael Naber 2015-08-15 23:30:14
Published on: 2015-08-15T23:30:14+00:00
The Bitcoin community is facing irreconcilable disagreements over the issue of block size. On August 15, 2015, Mike Hearn, a former Bitcoin developer, released Bitcoin XT 0.11A, which includes the bigger blocks patch set. This has caused controversy, with some seeing it as a divisive move and others viewing it as necessary to address the issue of scalability. Eric Lombrozo, another Bitcoin developer, expressed concern about the risk of permanent ledger forks that could occur if such changes were implemented without proper testing. Lombrozo suggests attempting a hard fork with a less contentious change first before making more drastic changes. The debate is complicated by accusations of conflicts of interest, particularly in relation to Blockstream, a company whose core developers are opposed to a reasonable block size increase due to concerns about scalability. Meanwhile, miners are being urged to consider Bitcoin XT seriously, but some have raised concerns that off-chain transactions through technology such as Lightning Network may eventually reduce demand for on-chain transactions, thus lowering on-chain fees.
Updated on: 2023-06-10T19:40:16.245931+00:00