Reflection on the Bitcoin Block Size War

Recently, I finished reading two historical books documenting the Bitcoin block size war of the 2010s, which represent opposing views supporting small blocks and large blocks.

• Jonathan Bier's "The Blocksize War", told from the perspective of supporting small Blocks.
• Roger Ver and Steve Patterson's "Hijacking Bitcoin," told from the perspective of supporting large Blocks.

As someone who has personally experienced and participated in these events to some extent, reading these two historical books is truly fascinating. Although I am quite familiar with most events and narratives from both sides, I still found some interesting details, and it is also intriguing to view these situations from a new perspective.

At that time, I was a pragmatic moderate block advocate, supporting large blocks but opposing extreme growth or absolutist statements. So do I still support my views from back then? I am looking forward to finding out the answer.

The Viewpoint of the Small Block Faction

According to Bier's narrative, the core issue of the small block faction is that changes to the Bitcoin protocol, especially "hard forks" (, should be extremely rare and require a high level of consensus among users.

They believe that Bitcoin is trying to become a brand new currency, not controlled by central organizations and central banks. If Bitcoin starts to have a highly active governance structure, or is easily manipulated by major players such as miners and exchanges, it will lose this unique advantage.

The small block faction is most unhappy with the large block faction's frequent attempts to gather a few major players together to push for changes, which is completely contrary to the small block faction's views on how governance should be conducted.

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The viewpoint of the Big Block faction

According to Ver's narrative, the core issue that the big block faction focuses on is: what exactly should Bitcoin be? Digital gold or digital cash?

For them, the original vision of Bitcoin is clearly digital cash. This is even explicitly mentioned in the white paper. They believe that the transition from digital cash to digital gold was made by a small group of core developers and then imposed on the entire project.

The big block faction criticizes the small block faction's proposed second-layer solutions like the Lightning Network for having serious shortcomings in practice. They believe that this complexity will inevitably drive users to interact with these networks in a centralized manner.

![Vitalik's New Article: Reflections on the Bitcoin Block Size War])https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-c2aba9268b448b890525239760ba215d.webp(

Key Differences in Perspectives

Bier and Ver have completely different descriptions of deeper issues:

• For Bier, the small block faction represents users, opposing a few powerful miners and exchanges attempting to control the network. Small blocks keep Bitcoin decentralized by ensuring that ordinary users can run nodes.

• For Ver, the big block faction represents the users, opposing a minority of self-proclaimed high-ranking clergy and VC-backed companies like Blockstream). Big blocks keep Bitcoin decentralized by ensuring that users can afford on-chain transaction fees.

My views then and now

At that time, I usually stood on the side of the big Block faction, mainly based on the following points:

1. The original intention of Bitcoin is digital cash, and high transaction fees could stifle this use case.

2. The claim that "Bitcoin should be controlled by users" made by small block proponents is not convincing, as they have never clearly defined "users" or how to measure user intent.

3. Segregated Witness is unnecessarily complex compared to a simple hard fork that increases block size.

4. The small block faction has engaged in excessive censorship on social media.

At the same time, I am also disappointed with some practices of the big block faction:

1. They have never agreed to any realistic block size limit principle.

2. They began to assert that miners should control Bitcoin, a view that has obvious problems.

3. They show obvious incompetence in technical implementation.

4. Some major supporters believe that Craig Wright's claim of being Satoshi Nakamoto is false, further losing credibility.

Overall, through reading these two books, I found that I more often agree with Ver's views on macro issues, but more often agree with Bier's views on specific details. The big block faction is right on the central issues, but the small block faction makes fewer technical mistakes.

Unilateral Capability Trap

This debate reflects a common political tragedy: one side monopolizes all capable individuals but uses power to promote narrow views; the other side correctly identifies the problem but fails to cultivate execution capability.

I call this problem the unilateral capability trap. This is a fundamental issue faced by anyone trying to establish a democratic or diversified entity. If there were stronger methods to prevent and escape this trap, we would benefit immensely.

The Importance of Technological Innovation

The ultimate way to ease political tensions is not through compromise, but through new technology. When an ecosystem stops embracing new technology, it inevitably stagnates and becomes more contentious.

A key question for the future of Bitcoin is whether it can become a technologically advanced ecosystem. Recently, the development of Inscriptions and BitVM has created new possibilities for the second layer, which is a positive signal.

Summary

Analyzing the successes and failures of Bitcoin provides important insights for other digital communities like Ethereum. Many of Ethereum's design decisions stem from an understanding of Bitcoin's limitations.

This debate also provides important lessons for the future "digital nation". The rebellious cryptocurrencies and cyber nations need to learn how to actually implement and build, not just throw parties and share the atmosphere.

I recommend reading these two books to understand this decisive moment in the history of Bitcoin and to draw lessons for the future construction of digital communities.