Today we're going to compare two recent interviews, or rather, two points of view which (in over-generalization terms) represent two opposing factions of bitcoin supporters. These two have debated before and I won't be shocked if they debate again directly very soon. They are debating quite often through their disconnected messages though.
With litecoin implementing SegWit, the software is finally being tested in the real world. If we see issues with this software it will be bearish for both litecoin and bitcoin. If we see no issues this will be very bullish for all cypocurrency, especially litecoin and I may argue that this could even be bearish for bitcoin because I highly doubt the bitcoin community being much larger and diverse reaching a consensus to adopt SegWit and thus Litecoin will have a competitive advantage to having a stronger, more close-knit community and improvements to the software to benefit it (see lightning network) in the long term.
Now on to the videos!
Video 1: Tone Vays:
Video 2: Roger Ver
Point 1 at 1:40 on Video 1 (Tone Vays)
His answer to Kenneth's first question exemplifies his distaste for alt coins. Alt coins are very valuable as they demonstrate a diverse flock of features that cryptocurrency can bring to the table. Tone has boiled this great sandbox/playground down to blaming people for profiteering and labeling them scam-coins. At 4:00 Ken does a good job with his follow-up question that making money with an alt-coin is great if it's providing benefit to the cryptocurrency space. Then Tone goes on to say all alt-coins are only for speculation and trading; sure right now they're not being used because bitcoin has the network effect but other coins (such as Dash, Ethereum, Namecoin, Litecoin) have their benefits and niche use cases.
Point 2 at 02:15 on Video 2 (Roger Ver)
Roger Ver on the other hand has been involved with bitcoin heavily since the very beginning. He's actively supporting alts like Dash in public and I think has a much more diverse stance on promoting bitcoin in terms of increasing efficiency and future improvements (i.e. higher blocksize).
Roger goes through his history of being involved in bitcoin since 5KB blocks and the raising of temporary limits. Some important points are made here about the early days of thoughts in the community.
Point 3 at 06:60 on Video 2 (Roger Ver)
Roger tries to talk down the fear of a hard fork, though there is some merit (as hard forks have happened before) if a coin splits, this will create at minimum a short-term crash and disruption, and great confusion from the non-tech supports and users of bitcoin. I think Roger understates the issues with a hard fork here.
Overall, Tone Vays has some good points in support of the standard bitcoin implementation. I think his points are too simple however, and I give the better argument to Roger Ver who even brings up Satoshi's thoughts himself that blocksize should not be restricted. It could not be more clear than that of what the vision in founding bitcoin was and if we appeal to that we know the path we should go. But the real world practical benefits to increasing the blocksize are just staggeringly apparent. We want cheaper transactions and higher capacity if we want to see mass adoption. Lightning network is currently a pie in the sky idea that adds confusion to the whole bitcoin learning curve which is already steep. Imagine your average person with no technical knowledge having to think about “is my transaction going to be broadcast on the blockchain or just in the lighting network? What difference does this mean...damn I’ll just use paypal or X coin instead”.