Cory Fields: Bitcoin expansion debate is a good thing

The debate over Bitcoin capacity expansion is very lively, and the media outside the circle is even more excited. They have written articles saying that Bitcoin is in crisis and may eventually die out. The reason for this understanding is probably due to the negative impact of the "tragic" Bitcoin capacity expansion controversy. However, this is not difficult to understand. The expansion controversy has lasted for a long time, and even many people in the Bitcoin community can't help but "doubt their lives."

Core contributor and member of MIT's Digital Currency Initiative, Cory Fields, called on the Bitcoin community at the recent MIT Bitcoin Expo to view the Bitcoin expansion controversy from a positive perspective.

The development process is more social

Fields stated in his speech:

“One of the big changes over the past year is that Bitcoin has become more social. Not only that, but the development process of Bitcoin has become more social.”

Fields contrasted Bitcoin’s past development model with the present, noting that Core contributors used to have more autonomy:

Looking back at the past development history: CORE developers said that changes were needed, and they would be made soon, and no one would argue with them because there were few interests involved. As the Bitcoin ecosystem grows, more and more people are involved, and more and more interests are involved, it is not so easy to change, and CORE developers can no longer simply announce to the outside world: this is the correct change in technology, you see, this is what we do. Now we are facing resistance, perhaps because our proposal does not fit well with a specific profit model, or because of differences of opinion on long-term goals.

Fields mentioned that the resistance he faced was that the scalability roadmap of Core was opposed by entrepreneurs and investors in the Bitcoin industry. And companies in the Bitcoin industry. Another plan, Bitcoin Classic, has received support from Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, Blockchain CEO Peter Smith, and Bitcoin angel investor Roger Ver. Bitcoin Classic intends to change the Bitcoin consensus rules through a hard fork and increase the block limit to 2MB.

Traditional development mechanism BIP begins to collapse

Fields said that the traditional system for making changes to the Bitcoin protocol, called BIP, is beginning to break down. In the past, whenever Core developers wanted to improve or add new features to the Bitcoin protocol, they could draft a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP).

“BIP is indeed a very successful development mechanism, but it has begun to disintegrate a little bit because people outside of Core may not benefit from the same development mechanism.”

Essentially, those who disagree with the Core solution are abandoning the traditional development mechanism of BIP and wanting more autonomy. Instead of reaching consensus through BIP, supporters of the 2 MB solution decided to write their own software and hope to gain the support of miners. Once 75% of miners agree to use it, the changes caused by the hard fork will be activated after 28 days.
According to Coin Dance, Bitcoin Classic currently accounts for 6% of the total network computing power.

Controversy is healthy

Finally, Fields noted that the difficulties in reaching consensus on Bitcoin’s scaling are a positive sign for the overall health of the system.

"The designers of the system can't change it on a whim anymore, and you know you have a perfectly constructed and secure system."

Fields went on to talk about how Bitcoin as a system was designed from the outset to be resistant to default changes and influences. In this regard, he claimed that Bitcoin has never been healthier than it is now.

If the fight stops, if it becomes easy to push through hard forks or other major changes, then at that point we know we've lost, it's not an interesting system anymore. If it's really that easy to manipulate, then it's not worth the effort.

Of course, there are some people, such as Classic developer Gavin Andresen, who has said that Bitcoin is too resistant to change. Andresen used to basically act as Bitcoin's "benevolent dictator." After Andresen handed the title of maintainer to Wladimir J. van der Laan in April 2014, Core's development process took a more consensus-based approach.

Original article: http://coinjournal.net/mits-cory-fields-contentiousness-in-bitcoin-is-sign-of-good-health/
By Kyle Torpey
Translator: printemps
Editor: printemps
Source (translation): Babbitt Information (http://www.8btc.com/contentiousness-is-healthy)