A war of words erupted on Twitter over the weekend with the likes of Bitcoin Cash head honcho Roger Ver and Bitcoin core developer Luke Dash Jr arguing over a reduction in Bitcoin’s block size to 300KB.
Luke Dash Jr, who is a prominent developer in the space, sparked the dispute by writing: “There is never any guarantee. We need to reduce the block size just to have a *realistic hope* of it remaining feasible and *becoming practical again*. The blockchain is *already* bigger than most people are willing to tolerate, and the situation is getting worse and worse.”
His views didn’t go down well on Twitter, with many suggesting that reducing the block size from 1MB to 300KB would be “impossible.”
Taboo? We just had a block size increase 2 years ago, a big mistake in hindsight. There is clearly no such taboo. This is just hypocrisy now.
— Luke Dashjr (@LukeDashjr) February 14, 2019
One of those sceptics was Roger Ver, who came out in opposition to Luke Dash Jr on his Bitcoin.com YouTube show.
“I really hope that Luke Jr and all these other guys lower the BTC block size to 300KB. If they do, I will sell even more of my BTC. A lot more. Maybe I would even sell all of it at that point. Absolute insanity.”
Ver spoke alongside Gabriel Cardona, a Bitcoin Cash developer and the brains behind Badger Wallet and Bitbox. He argued that a reduction in block size would cause detriment to the user experience.
Cardona said: “The crazy mistake of shrinking the blocks, the mistake of depending on the Lightning Network as a scaling solution, is that it’s just a poor user experience, and there are solutions that are superior. And that’s just a fundamental misunderstanding on a deep level.”
Conversely, there is an argument that the controversial decision to reduce block size may work in tandem with the scaling success of the Lightning Network.
“I agree with LukeDashjr that the block size should be smaller. I feel more confidence to say it now that we have LN making strides. I’ll run the soft fork,” said John Carvalho, a renowned figure in the space.
Keep following Coin Rivet as the debate continues to unfold on social media.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author should not be considered as financial advice. We do not give advice on financial products.