There have been quite a few proposals to raise Bitcoin’s block size limit by way of a hard fork over the past three years, but none of them were able to gain consensus among the nodes on the network. The key selling point of such an increase to the block size limit has always been the idea that an increase in the supply of block space will lead to lower transaction fees and the ability for the network to process more transactions per second, but the current congestion seen on the Bitcoin network has actually had a positive impact in terms of the forced optimization of companies’ interactions with the blockchain.
While higher transaction fees have undoubtedly priced out some low-value use cases of Bitcoin block space, the optimizations being implemented by bitcoin custodians and wallet providers should help the cryptoasset network retain its core value proposition of decentralized, censorship-resistant digital money over the long term.