Bitcoin Is Having a Civil War as It Enters a Critical Month
The basic question is how to scale; off-chain or on-chain. The rest is just theatrics and typical nerdy hyperbole.<p>One side of the fight (Core &#x2F; blockstream) wants to scale off-chain, pushing transactions to side-chains and&#x2F;or lighting networks, and want to profit from off-chain solutions.<p>The other side of the fight (segwit2x &#x2F; miners) wants to scale on-chain, making the blocks bigger, and profit from block fees.<p>Both sides have pros and cons.<p>Pros of off-chain solutions - more scalable, don&#x27;t need expensive confirmations for each transaction, more long-term. Cons: the solutions don&#x27;t exist yet and might be vaporware; segwit etc are just stepping stones.<p>Pros of on-chain solutions - making the blocks larger can be done now, no need to wait for new software and new networks. Cons - makes the blocks larger, which makes running bitcoin nodes harder. Also cannot scale this way infinitely (you need to keep all the transactions on a disk forever).<p>The discussion about segwit is in reality just discussion about how to scale, and who profits.<p>As for me, I don&#x27;t really care, Bitcoin is inefficient either way