Core has preached for years that on-chain transactions cannot scale. "We need Segwit, we need Lightning channels.", they say. "On-chain scaling is centralization.", they say. This rhetoric is simply untrue.

First, ask yourself this. Let's say they are right, and on-chain won't scale in the distant future when we need VISA level transactions. Ok, but what about now? Wouldn't a bump to 2MB, 4MB, 8MB work now? BTC has tremendous high fees and clogged transaction logs today. Why not give the block size a bump to keep things working, with the intention of fixing the "big stuff" at a later time when it is necessary?

The answer is, they don't want bigger blocks AT ALL. Their intention isn't to have a growing blockchain with the worlds first truly sovereign money. Quite the opposite. They want to take control of the fees, make money from Bitcoin and maintain control. The fact that they don't even want a simple 2MB bump, at all costs, vindicates this.

As for centralization. Bitcoin was designed for miners to be selfish, profit-seeking entities. They keep the chain secure, maintain the transactions, and make a profit. They are business entities. It was never intended for every user of Bitcoin to run a full node on a Raspberri Pi. Non-mining nodes do not increase the integrity or security of the network. One hash, one vote. That's how it works. As the network grows, the number of miners grow too, but not on a 1:1 scale. There will never be a truly massive numbers of miners. This is by design. This is what core preaches as "centralization", but it's a red herring. Can a miner attack the network? They have no incentive to, but it's another red herring. We don't need to trust them. After an initial incubation period of mining hash power growth (which BTC did in 2010, and BCH is now past), there is plenty of hash power distribution between the miners.

As for lightning networks, it has already been proven that > 3 hops is open to sybil attacks. Lighting networks may be as much as eight hops! This isn't scaling. It isn't secure. It isn't necessary. On-chain scaling stays below the three-hops. Simpler, faster, safer. Maybe some layer-two solutions will be in Bitcoin's future, but it's not a requirement for the chain to operate!

When we get to VISA-level transactions and beyond, it will take computers with massive disk space, massive memory, massive horsepower. Again, this is by design. Gigabyte sized blocks have already been tested, and they work. Do we need them today? No. BCH has a paltry 8MB and it's doing quite well. It will be raised when necessary, in a non-contentious way. Can a Raspberri Pi manage gigabyte blocks? No. Can a modestly equipped computer today handle gigabyte blocks? Yes. Computing power will scale easily to cover the needs of Bitcoin mining.