Bitcoin is accustomed to taking flak from non-believers. It’s been declared dead more times than most people care to count, and will continue to be written off long after dissenting CEOs have conceded defeat and quietly bought BTC. The latest group to take potshots at bitcoin aren’t external actors with little understanding of the protocol, however – they’re insiders who were once its biggest supporters. The cause of much of the commotion? Scaling.
A Schism in the Church of Bitcoin
If there’s one thing everyone can agree on, it’s that the blockchain is in desperate need of an upgrade. As new users pile in by the hundreds of thousands, the network has struggled to contain the strain. In the early days of bitcoin, few balked at a transaction taking 30 minutes to confirm. But for businesses today seeking to use bitcoin as a global payments system, that wait must seem as interminable as downloading a movie in the dial-up days.
Pool’s Closed
Of course, the scaling debate isn’t just about speed: it’s also about fees. When Segwit was implemented back in August, one feature it hindered was near-instant transactions for small purchases such as a cup of coffee. Exacerbated by rising fees, bitcoin has become unsuitable for small transactions. As the bitcoin network has struggled, bitcoin cash with its 8MB blocks has gleefully stepped up to the plate and proffered itself as an ideal candidate for fast and low-cost transactions.
With bitcoin fees hitting an all-time high, over 130,000 unconfirmed transactions in the mempool and some transactions taking days to complete, bitcoin is screaming out for a scaling solution. Critics have called bigger block sizes an arbitrary and inelegant scaling approach that’s simply kicking the can down the road. It appears to have done the trick for bitcoin cash so far, however, and will soon be working for Dash, whose latest release includes an upgrade to 2MB blocks.
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https://news.bitcoin.com/biggest-obstacle-bitcoin-scaling-isnt-technical-political/