“So, when I first heard about bitcoin, I started reading about it,” recounts Roger Ver, who refers to himself as the first person to invest in a Bitcoin startup. “And, before that, my hobby was studying economics. In order for something to become useful and to become money, it has to have certain characteristics. Bitcoin had those characteristics better than any kind of money that had ever come...
Segregated Witness or SegWit, a proposed upgrade to the Bitcoin protocol, could become the new iteration of the Bitcoin code if 95 percent of the hash power adopts the solution. Miner-adoption sits just shy of 25 percent currently, though, as users mull other options, like Bitcoin Unlimited or Bitcoin Classic, in Bitcoin’s “Civil War,” as it’s been called. Privacy...
Like the recent US election, tensions within the Bitcoin Community have run high for the better parts of 2015 and 2016 as a rather-minor code change (known as the ‘block size debate’) has become a political race for competing factions, some of which have non-developers as spokespeople pushing an alternative to Bitcoin’s core client, Bitcoin Core. In the past for the Bitcoin Core...
Ethereum hard forks might serve as an important lesson for Bitcoin about how such a technical change to a distributed system unfolds. Ethereum’s first hard fork, for instance, resulted in a competing Ethereum chain. Wildly engaged in their own debates on forums and Reddit, Bitcoiners are currently deliberating changing key aspects of Bitcoin’s code. But the Ethereum hard fork might give them a...
“Let’s Raise the Bitcoin Block Size!” That’s Roger Ver’s take on the block size debate. But the Bitcoin leader has been such a staunch proponent of increasing the block size, we at CCN, thought we’d take some of Roger’s most recent quotes on increasing the block size so that Bitcoin can take on more transactions and make a listicle. 1. “I’m sure the current core...
While the Bitcoin Community debates the merits of a bigger block size so as to accommodate more transactions per second (the current rate is approximately 7 transactions per second), the world’s largest corporations – from financial institutions to technology firms – have entered into the blockchain industry with new ideas and protocols to ensure the proliferation of the...
The founder of the Bitcoin Association Switzerland, Luzius Meisser, recently released the results of a block size survey he conducted. He wanted to test the differences in which entrepreneurial and technical mindsets viewed the block size problem. His hypothesis stated that entrepreneurs likely favor larger blocks than those of a technical mindset. “And the answer seems yes.” Of 269 respondents...
In an announcement today, the largest bitcoin mining pools and that represent over 70% of the cryptocurrency network’s hashing rate have, in a common consensus with major bitcoin exchanges and service providers, agreed with 90 percent of the Bitcoin Core contributors over the proposed roadmap for scaling bitcoin. In an announcement today, members of the Bitcoin Core team and representatives of...
Today, Bitcoin Classic released code that could double the block size. The concept is crucial, the timing is interesting, the repercussions massive. At CCN, we have covered block size conversations and opinions. Bitfury’s Vavilov has an opinion. Dash has addressed the limitations. But now the debate is in full swing and the intensity is increasing. After Mike Hearn’s recent departure...
Bitcoin does not need to scale. While Satoshi Nakamoto might have arbitrarily designed a 1MB block size into the Bitcoin protocol with little explanation, many industry people forget that, just because that amount was arbitrary, does not mean the protocol must scale now or ever. The people who feel this way – in what essentially represents a conservative approach to the debate – have...
For an industry recently shaken by the grasps of censorship on the most popular Bitcoin forums on the internet, where thousands of people interested in the tech turn to learn, the scorn for Mike Hearn has been telling. Hearn, who wrote in a Medium post he was leaving Bitcoin, has been trending in the Bitcoin industry for a fortnight now. So what did Hearn say? In his post, “The Resolution of the...
Drama engulfed the Bitcoin industry over the weekend as longtime developer Mike Hearn announced his departure from the Bitcoin space. As Hearn announced he had divested from Bitcoin in December, Bitcoin Classic – a successor to Bitcoin-XT as a new client – appeared on the scene as a possible new implementation of the Bitcoin protocol. Many in the Bitcoin industry celebrated the new...
CCN reached out to the Bitcoin Community via various sources, including Reddit, BitcoinTalk, and our own contacts, in order to gauge the sentiment of the Bitcoin Community in survey form. Included are our answers. Of the more than 130 people who took our survey, 56.3% believed that Bitcoin should use Bitcoin-XT. 81.6% believe the block size limit should be increased, assuming nobody believes it...
As this debate on BitcoinTalk demonstrates, the current rhubarb regarding increasing the block size limit in Bitcoin has been ongoing since at least 2013 in a public manner… as well as a heated one. The discussion between the Bitcoin core developers goes on for 26 pages. The most recent post is April 2013. It starts with Peter Todd, who still to this day opposes increasing the block size...
This weekend’s official XT release was made under pretense that a bigger block size will supposedly increase Bitcoin’s capacity and allow more transactions per second, cheaper fees and wider adoption. So why had the decision caused so much controversy and why didn’t the Core developers just implement it already? We all want a large scale Bitcoin with maximum participation...
Lately there has been chatter that by raising the block limit, or discussing doing so, we are opening up the gates to later have a discussion about making other major changes to Bitcoin. It’s even been suggested that by letting this block size limit raise go through, we are opening the door to the possibility of a coin limit raise. Which is just ridiculous on the face. Under no...
From a fundamental analysis perspective the attributes of cryptographically secured value tokens, mathematical consensus and censorship resistance are what gives Bitcoin its value. With a high degree of decentralization, these attributes become more meaningful and Bitcoin more valuable. In the face of centralization they become meaningless and Bitcoin loses its value, both perceived and real...
The biggest topic in Bitcoin over the last month has been what to do with the size of blocks within the block chain. Mike Hearn and Gavin Andresen have been vocal and influential proponents of a size from 1 MB o 20 MB blocks to ease the growth of Bitcoin as a global currency. At this current 1 MB rate, they say the network will enter a logjam situation within the next year, and this is the...
An issue that has been the source for months of debate and rancor throughout the Bitcoin mining and developer community over Bitcoin’s block size appears to have reached a long-awaited resolution. Within the most recent BitcoinXT update, Gavin Andresen has begun the process of revising the block chain individual block size from 1 MB to 8 MB starting next year. This is deemed necessary for...
The motion in Bitcoin’s Ocean – size does matter. Ex-Bitcoin Foundation developer Gavin Andresen and Bitcoinj Author Mike Hearn, think Bitcoin needs a benevolent dictator to affect change. Maybe they need a reminder that Bitcoin’s purpose is to replace monetary dictators with Computer Science. Dictators, no matter how benevolent, are the ultimate act of centralization. Nobody...