Ethereum cofounder Vitalik Buterin delves into contentious Bitcoin block size war.
Vitalik Buterin provided an in-depth analysis of one of Bitcoin’s most contentious historical debates. Buterin's reflections are based on his readings of two prominent books on the subject: Jonathan Bier's "The Blocksize War," which offers a pro-small-block perspective, and Roger Ver and Steve Patterson's "Hijacking Bitcoin," which advocates for the big-block viewpoint. The Bitcoin block size war of the 2010s was a fundamental dispute over the direction and nature of Bitcoin’s scalability and utility. The central issue was whether Bitcoin should increase its block size limit from 1 MB to accommodate more transactions, thereby reducing fees, or maintain smaller blocks to ensure that running a node remains accessible to more users, preserving decentralization.
