Is Bitcoin breaking up?
The Bitcoin community is rapidly coalescing around an effort to increase the maximum allowed blocksize to 2MB as soon as possible. This increase is being implemented in a new client, Bitcoin Classic [0], which is a fork of Bitcoin Core that changes only the single line of code that sets the blocksize limit.<p>Bitcoin Classic was created by Jonathan Toomim, an American miner and developer who went to China to talk directly with Chinese miners and to test the effect of bigger blocks on mining operations behind the Great Firewall. Gavin Andresen, Bitcoin Core&#x27;s former lead developer, and Jeff Garzik, another prominent Core developer, as well as many others, are collaborating with Toomim on further changes that Bitcoin Classic may implement later.<p>The big difference between Bitcoin Classic and Mike Hearn&#x27;s failed Bitcoin XT is the concerted effort by the people behind Classic to garner the explicit support of miners (and other important members of the Bitcoin ecosystem) for a blocksize increase. At my last check yesterday, mining-pool operators representing 72% of global hashing power had explicitly expressed their support for Bitcoin Classic&#x27;s blocksize increase, as had the operators of many popular exchanges, web wallets, and payment providers. (There is a growing compendium of prominent supporters on Bitcoin Classic&#x27;s website; the complete list is on the project&#x27;s Github page [1].)<p>That means that Bitcoin Classic is very likely to break Core&#x27;s monopoly on the protocol soon. The blocksize increase, and the fork of the blockchain that it will create, is tentatively scheduled to take place after March 1. Get ready.<p>(By the way, the best sources for information and discussion about the Bitcoin world are now the &#x2F;r&#x2F;btc sub-Reddit and the discussion forums at bitcoin.com and bitco.in; the community&#x27;s former hubs, &#x2F;r&#x2F;Bitcoin and bitcointalk.org, are both controlled by the same operator&#x2F;moderator, and he has strongly censored and perverted all discussion of changes to the protocol that are not supported by Core&#x27;s intransigent cabal of developers.)<p>0. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bitcoinclassic.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bitcoinclassic.com</a><p>1. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;bitcoinclassic&#x2F;website&#x2F;issues&#x2F;3" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;bitcoinclassic&#x2F;website&#x2F;issues&#x2F;3</a>