/biz/ - Business & Finance

Well, what if this whole “scaling debate” is all actually just bullshit?

>A few years ago…

There was a problem with transaction costs and backlogs. A quick-fix (blocksize increase) would work till the next time but would weaken the network a little. A more elegant solution (Lightning) would massively increase capacity but it will take time to write and test the code.

If the aim is to promote exponential adoption in the long term then a quick fix might not help. You might irritate the early-adopters by doing nothing, but better them than the much greater number of future users, when/if the network hits a ceiling. Anyway, fuck the early-adopters, they’re going to be rich.

There’s a step you could take towards Lightning immediately (SegWit), but Lightning itself, and some other interesting bits of software, are still a few years away. On its own, SegWit doesn’t do much unless everyone changes their addresses. Even then it only doubles capacity.

>Now…

The devs didn’t want to give r/btc their blocksize increase a few years ago, apparently because they didn’t want to take responsibility for weakening the network.

The miners didn’t want to give r/bitcoin their SegWit a few years ago, apparently because they wanted a blocksize increase.

>But…

All this time, code is getting written and tested.

And somehow, usefully opposed factions have emerged in the “community”.

Instead of whinging about an address-change, the whole of r/bitcoin will now be showing friends and family how to fund channels the first chance they get.

All the while, r/btc, and their soon-to-be-obsolescent bcash shitcoin, will be providing uncertainty; sufficient uncertainty that new technology will boost bitcoin value on its implementation rather than prematurely.

>For a disparate group of miners and developers who appear to disagree, they’re managing this quite well.

Pic unrelated.