Bitcoin is more than just a currency using decentralised technology, it’s a network, a community. In recent weeks and months, the community has all but split into big blockers (p2p cash) and small blockers (settlement layer), and confidence has been lost in Bitcoin itself by some long term holders for the first time in its history.

I’m not going to repeat the technical arguments or mention any of the people involved, let alone talk about the conspiracy theories being thrown around from both sides and poor/divisive behaviour from certain developers (both core and ex core) and community managers. It’s starting to feel like a Donald Trump rally held on /r/bitcoin and /r/btc.

I want to make a different point. The biggest bone of contention right now is whether there should be an immediate boost to 2 meg blocks, doubling the potential transaction capacity (but not necessarily throughput). Bitcoin core are refusing to do any such thing. Instead they are implementing interesting and useful but more more complex technology which doesn’t help as much in a scaling sense, and have a very long road map. The argument (rightly) goes that a 2 meg raise comes with slight risks and is nothing more than a can kick. There may be better engineering solutions but they’ll take time to become viable on the public network.

This is ironic because bitcoin itself is imperfect to the point that even Blockstream’s Adam Beck didn’t think it would work, it’s always been just good enough. I’ve yet to see a criticism of 2 meg blocks that doesn’t continue to tick that box. There do appear to be more significant potential issues that come with increasing that size much further which warrant further research or perhaps confirm the requirement for additional layers.

I seriously doubt small blockers devs are just doing what Blockstream want, in fact they probably joined Blockstream because they agreed with that particular vision. Engineers are providing sound reasoning and the engineer in me is marginally on their side, certainly long term with regard to lightning networks.

However, in their efforts not to take risks with Bitcoin they’ve made a calamitous error. They misjudged the risk to Bitcoin caused by a marginal engineering decision when it has a massive impact on the community.

As a result, core are doing more damage to Bitcoin than 2 meg blocks ever could.

There is an enormous difference between Bitcoin as a settlement layer and Bitcoin as p2p cash, and even if blocks are being ‘spammed’ it’s totally irrelevant — it’s evidence of a problem here and now. Classifying spam on the bitcoin network is a hell of a judgement call anyway.

I’m not arguing for Bitcoin Classic or for large blocks beyond this raise, but core must realise that this decision is not just about engineering, it’s about the network. Anyone who knows me understands my views on Ethereum, but even I can see that the recent and unbelievable price rise is as much about the failure of core dev as Ethereum’s potential and pumpers.

A substantial number of users and businesses no longer trust core, who seem to be utterly paralysed with fear of breaking something yet have broken it anyway. Not doing anything is a decision just as much as doing something.

It’s time to wake up and bring the community back together. This is far more important than having a perfect bitcoin. What use is that if we’ve all moved on elsewhere. It’s not just Ethereum, the top 10–15 alts all offer something interesting now and we have several more innovations to come.

The engineers must learn to embrace the imperfect for perfection is the enemy of progress.

Bitcoin is in danger of imploding and its entirely self-inflicted and avoidable. It’d be deeply ironic if it wasn’t a cryptography failure, the 21 million cap or regulation, but bitcoin’s own developers who killed it.