Can someone explain to me why there is any debate when Nakamoto himself said:
The existing Visa credit card network processes about 15 million Internet purchases per day worldwide. Bitcoin can already scale much larger than that with existing hardware for a fraction of the cost. It never really hits a scale ceiling. If you're interested, I can go over the ways it would cope with extreme size. By Moore's Law, we can expect hardware speed to be 10 times faster in 5 years and 100 times faster in 10. Even if Bitcoin grows at crazy adoption rates, I think computer speeds will stay ahead of the number of transactions.
Assumption #1 from 2009 : By Moore's Law, we can expect hardware speed to be 10 times faster in 5 years and 100 times faster in 10.
If this assumption is on track, then, by now, hardware speed should be 25 times faster than in 2009. Is Satoshi correct on this one?
I don't anticipate that fees will be needed anytime soon, but if it becomes too burdensome to run a node, it is possible to run a node that only processes transactions that include a transaction fee. The owner of the node would decide the minimum fee they'll accept. Right now, such a node would get nothing, because nobody includes a fee, but if enough nodes did that, then users would get faster acceptance if they include a fee, or slower if they don't. The fee the market would settle on should be minimal. If a node requires a higher fee, that node would be passing up all transactions with lower fees. It could do more volume and probably make more money by processing as many paying transactions as it can. The transition is not controlled by some human in charge of the system though, just individuals reacting on their own to market forces.
Assumption #2 from 2009: 1 MINER = 1 NODE (all miners run full nodes and all full nodes are mining)
Is Satoshi correct on this one?
Eventually, most nodes may be run by specialists with multiple GPU cards. For now, it's nice that anyone with a PC can play without worrying about what video card they have, and hopefully it'll stay that way for a while. More computers are shipping with fairly decent GPUs these days, so maybe later we'll transition to that.
Assumption #3 from 2009: Best mining technology will be GPU's.
Is Satoshi correct on this one?
If all 3 assumptions made in 2009 by Satoshi are correct, then Bitcoin may scale like VISA. Otherwise, Satoshi is wrong and it may not scale the way it was originally intended to.
Let's elaborate on the scenarios:
#1 correct, #2 correct, #3 correct: Bitcoin scales like VISA, yay!!
#1 correct, #2 correct, #3 incorrect: Bitcoin scales like VISA, but only miners with ASIC's have nodes => few nodes = centralization = bad
#1 correct, #2 incorrect, #3 correct: Bitcoin scales like VISA, but nodes are run only by volunteers, miners don't exactly need them => few nodes = centralization = bad
#1 correct, #2 incorrect, #3 incorrect: Bitcoin scales like VISA, but a few mining pools and ASIC farms remain, nodes are ran mainly by volunteers => few nodes = centralization = bad
#1 incorrect, #2 correct, #3 correct: The miners with the fastest CPU's and bandwith get an increasing advantage as Bitcoin scales, eventually few nodes = centralization = bad
#1 incorrect, #2 correct, #3 incorrect: The miners with the best ASIC's and bandwith get an increasing advantage as Bitcoin scales, eventually few nodes = centralization = bad
#1 incorrect, #2 incorrect, #3 correct: As Bitcoin scales, nodes ran by volunteers disappear, only a few nodes ran by some of the miners remain = centralization = bad
#1 incorrect, #2 incorrect, #3 incorrect: As Bitcoin scales, nodes ran by volunteers disappear, only a few nodes ran by some big ASIC farms or mining pools remain = centralization = bad
So, if Satoshi is wrong on one of the 3 assumptions, then we have to trade "scaling" with "centralization". VISA is already scaled and centralized. So, if we scale Bitcoin like this, then Bitcoin becomes just like VISA, or an inefficient competitor to VISA.
