Author: Ken Friece 2015-08-19 12:24:28
Published on: 2015-08-19T12:24:28+00:00
The current debate over the block size issue in Bitcoin has led to many users running the XT client, not necessarily because they specifically support BIP101, but rather as a vote for bigger blocks. However, if Core were to support bigger blocks, most XT users would switch back to Core and XT would die. In this high stakes game of poker, XT just went all-in, but Core still has the better hand. There are many scaling solutions that Core could adopt to appease XT users enough to kill XT. The longer it takes for Core to reach consensus on this issue, the stronger XT gets.The Bitcoin market price has a far greater mining centralizing effect than larger blocks ever will. With the total Bitcoin market cap under ~5 billion at the next halving in July 2016, it's game over for all but the most efficient miners. The mining centralization that may occur with 8MB blocks in 2016 is nothing compared to the centralization that will occur if the total Bitcoin market cap does not grow substantially between now and the next halving. Investors hate uncertainty, and the blocksize issue is adding a lot of uncertainty right now, which makes the mining nightmare scenario outlined above more likely. The entire ecosystem needs time to adjust and grow once a Core scaling solution is adopted. Not-BitcoinXT is considered a really terrible idea by some. Mike Hearn, the creator of the XT client, has proven time and time again that he will not blink or back down. The chances of Not-BitcoinXT gaining 25% of the hashrate are pretty much nil, so in effect, all Not-BitcoinXT will do is help XT reach the 75% threshold sooner and result in putting more people on the losing side of the fork.
Updated on: 2023-06-10T20:38:21.951350+00:00