Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Bitcoin XT 0.11A

From: Mike Hearn <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 2015 15:49:15 +0200

Hi Eric,

Sorry you feel that way. I devoted a big part of the article to trying to
fairly represent the top 3 arguments made, but ultimately I can't link to a
clear statement of what Bitcoin Core thinks because there isn't one. Some
people think the block size should increase, but not now, or not by much.
Others think it should stay at 1mb forever, others think everyone should
migrate to Lightning, people who are actually *implementing* Lightning
think it's not a replacement for an increase ..... I think one or two
people even suggested shrinking the block size!

So I've done my best to sum up the top arguments. If you think I've done a
bad job, well, get writing and lay it out how you see it!

I don't think the position of "Bitcoin is open source but touching THESE
parts is completely bogus" is reasonable. Bitcoin is open source or it
isn't. You can't claim to be decentralised and open source, but then only
have 5 people who are allowed to edit the most important parts. That's
actually worse than central banking!

This isn’t a democracy - consensus is all or nothing.

This idea is one of the incorrect beliefs that will hopefully be disproven
in the coming months. Bitcoin cannot possibly be "all or nothing" because
as I pointed out before, that would give people a strong financial
incentive to try and hold the entire community to ransom: "I have 1
terahash/sec of mining power. Pay me 1000 BTC or I'll never agree to the
next upgrade".

Or indeed, me and Gavin could play the same trick.