In a recent blog post at https://medium.com/@seweso/small-block-steel-man-f9109ac7ab Wouter Schut analyzed the BCT versus BCH debate. His analysis came across to me as being objective and thoughtful—things that seem rarely present in this debate.
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Schut frames the article as a “steel man” toward the small block or Bitcoin Core argument. That is, he is attempting to explain why small blocks or Bitcoin Core is inferior by announcing their best-laid arguments. “Steelmanning,” apparently tries to argue against something by, oddly, outlining the other side’s most solid, but unstated, arguments. It is helping the weaker arguer by presenting his best evidence that he has failed to present on his own. Frankly, it is unclear to me how this aids one’s own argument, yet that is steelmanning.
For purposes here, though, I admire the civility that was involved in the post.
Wouter lays out seven contentions of small blockers. He purports that these tenets are fundamental to small blockers and Bitcoin Core. I can’t disagree. For sake of scoreboarding, let's take a look.
Extreme consensus. The idea is that if we’re to truly believe in decentralization, a simple majority-rule doesn’t cut it. After all, 50% plus one more person could mean domination over the minority. I like this, but also believe in free market principles and survival-of-the-fittest in the economy. Allowing BCH to spawn, compete, then either survive, dominate, or thrive is the way of the business world. Score +1 for BCH. BTC = 0, BCH = 1.
Centralization risk/cost of bigger blocks. This is a huge problem, in my mind, with BCH. The few and large mining operations, Jihan Wu and China, spit in the face of decentralization. +1 BTC. BTC =1, BCH = 1.
Bad UX and speed on-chain. BCH, no question, for now. This could certainly change though going forward with the Lightning network if it indeed grows in usage. BTC = 1, BCH = 2.
Most transactions are off-chain. This is an interesting idea…that “buying” bitcoin or any crypto on an exchange isn’t really buying it. It’s meting out a deal with the third-party exchange (that is, unless you’re using an exchange like EtherDelta). BTC = 2, BCH = 2.
Store-of-value is more important than MoE. I tend to disagree with the notion here that BTC-folk make this assumption. From the start, both were important. Frankly, this notion of HODLing is more new to the game. Anyone paying attention back in like 2013 will remember many-a-posts on reddit shaming anyone who held onto their BTC rather than using it. The mindset was that the only way to grow bitcoin’s usage and population was to put it to use. Also, bitcoin’s push toward Segwit and Lightning hint that there is a strong desire to make it a method-of-exchange (MoE) for everyday things as well. If the Lightning Network comes to fruition, that may happen. BTC = 3, BCH = 2.
Off-chain does better. Yes*. There is an asterisk here, though. Off-chain also begins to slide away from Satoshi’s original vision. It is less transparent, or not at all, depending on how it is done. As a for-instance, Visa or PayPal are fantastic tools. I use and like them both. But, I have to trust them. Still, off-chain certainly would mean faster and a better user experience overall. The proverbial cup of coffee is all it takes to see this. Paying in BTC on-chain would mean the TX fee is more expensive than the coffee, and/or, you hold up the line for 10 minutes to confirm. Off-chain does better. BTC = 4, BCH = 2.
SPV demands you trust miners. SPV is where a “light client” processes transactions but doesn’t have to download the whole whopping blockchain, just the applicable part. This one is tricky. I don’t think anyone disputes that these light SPV clients are accurate or not. But, as Schut points out in his article, it comes around to governance. Oddly for the BTC crowd, this also undercuts "extreme consensus", as Schut alludes. And, as always with money and crypto, it comes back to trust. The miners who run full nodes (they’ve downloaded the full blockchain) are the ones at the foundational level. Anyone running a light node is trusting those full nodes. Like a skyscraper, the 99th floor holds up the top floor, floor 100, but every single floor trusts the foundational level. Big blockers (BCH) would fall victim to non-SPV first, but I’ll call this one a tie because both will eventually crush under their own weight without scaling solutions.
Final score, BTC = 4; BCH = 2
Things change fast in crypto. But, to me the takeaway now is that BCT is either going to have to simply say, “Bitcoin is digital gold, that’s it.” Or, the Lightning Network, or something off-chain, will need to be fully implemented.
Originally published on http://satoshitimes.wikidot.com
June 30, 2018
LINK: http://satoshitimes.wikidot.com/blog:26
Although dated, this is being posted here on the Hive blockchain so that it's archived.