Vitalik Buterin on Bitcoin blocks

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin recently criticized those opposed to increasing Bitcoin's block size. The argument is based on two books that examine the “Bitcoin block size war” from opposing points of view.

Jonathan Bier's The Blocksize War favors smaller blocks, while Roger Ver and Steve Patterson's Hacking Bitcoin argue for larger blocks. Buterin, who participated in these debates, uses these narratives to evaluate the technological direction of Bitcoin.

Why does bitcoin block rate?

The debate centers around the role of Bitcoin – should it be a decentralized “digital gold” or an accessible “digital currency”? As Bier explains, small blockers argue for keeping a small block size to prevent centralization and manipulation by powerful entities. Furthermore, they believe that significant changes should occur only rarely and with broad consensus.

Conversely, big detractors argue that Satoshi envisioned Bitcoin as a digital currency. Hence, they emphasize the need for larger blocks to reduce transaction fees and improve accessibility.

They argue that expanding the block size is critical to accommodate the growing user base. This reduces the dependency on layer 2 solutions that can centralize the network.

Bitcoin block size refers to the maximum amount of data that can be included in one block on the Bitcoin blockchain. The current Bitcoin block size is 1 megabyte. This size limit affects the number of transactions each block can handle, affecting overall transaction speed and network scalability.

Read more: Simplifying Bitcoin White Paper: A Comprehensive Guide

Buterin vs. Big Blockers, highlighting the practical limitations of the Lightning Network and other Layer 2 protocols promoted by small blockers. He's also reminded of Bitcoin's original promise of low fees and high leverage — something he believes has been broken by overly cautious management.

Crucially, Buterin undermines the small blockers by failing to articulate a clear consensus mechanism for minor changes, preferring to maintain a status quo consistent with their conservative growth outlook. This approach has limited Bitcoin's evolution and limited its functionality.

“I myself often agree with Weir on the big picture questions, but I often agree with Bier on the individual details. In my view, the big blockers were right on the central question that blockchains should be big, and to do so with the clean, simple hard fork described by Satoshi. “It was better, but the smaller blockers made far fewer embarrassing technical faux pas. Fewer positions that lead to absurd results if you try to take them to their logical conclusion,” Buterin said.

He also pointed out that both sides can integrate improved technologies and solve security problems. For example, the ZK-SNARKs technology that enables a secretive and efficient trading process is highlighted in the discussions in both books.

Read more: Who is Vitalik Buterin? Take a closer look at the co-founder of Ethereum

Reflecting on block-scale wars, Buterin acknowledged the technical and political complexities involved. Finally, he recommends both books to anyone interested in understanding the deep-rooted misunderstandings affecting Bitcoin's trajectory.