The debate around the scalability of the Bitcoin network has changed tone. When the bitcoin supporter and developer Mike Hearn publicly left the open source project last week, he did so with a few parting shots. He stated that bitcoin was “a failure” on his way out of the door; a claim that led to a whole host of negative media coverage. It may also have had an influence on the price, as BTC/USD fell around 15 percent following the announcement. That led to a barrage of criticism of Hearn, some of which degenerated into the personal.

Many felt that it was sour grapes as his proposed “solution” to the scalability problem, BitcoinXT, had not found the support it needed among miners and therefore looks like fading into obscurity. Others claimed that he was motivated by personal gain, and saw the whole thing as a publicity stunt for R3CEV, a startup servicing major financial institutions for which Hearn is the Chief Platform Officer.

Either, neither or both may be the case, but assigning motivation to others is always a dangerous and pointless thing. In this case it also makes some of bitcoin’s strengths, its openness and the diversity of opinion amongst the community, look like a weakness.

Whatever Hearn’s reasons for leaving, his assertion that Bitcoin had failed is simply not true. It may have failed in some ways to live up to his expectations, but the simple fact that a discussion of scalability is needed is a product of the success of the digital currency project. If the popularity and real world usage of the currency and the network weren’t growing there would be no need to increase the transaction capacity.

The discussion of how best to achieve that is ongoing, and the fact that it is happening now, before change is essential, is a sign of strength in itself. True democracy and decentralization are, by their very nature, messy. Without centralized control decisions are hard to come by, but there is a lot to be said for the wisdom afforded by multiple minds.

At the end of last year, in an article here attempting to peer into Bitcoin’s future, I stated that the whole debate around scalability would be a chance for Bitcoin to display its open, inclusive, democratic nature and as such would be a positive for the currency. That looked way off the mark as the negative publicity surrounding Hearn’s departure caused a drop in price, but on the assumption that consensus will be reached at some point, it could easily still be true.

As long as that consensus is reached before the network is at capacity and as long as the adopted solution works as intended, the benefits of an open source system will simply be better known. Indeed, after that initial drop as Hearn’s comments gained traction, BTC/USD has recovered to be back above $400 on the Coindesk Bitcoin Price Index (BPI) at the time of writing.

The market, it seems, has spoken and has decided that as more conventional carriers of wealth, stocks and commodities, collapse, bitcoin is far from a “failure.”

To paraphrase Mark Twain, then, it would seem that reports of Bitcoin’s death are greatly exaggerated. The network faces a huge challenge in the near future as a solution to continuing increases in popularity must be found, but that is in many ways a wonderful problem to have. I simply hope that the debate going forward ignores the personal and focuses instead on the reason that the network needs scaling, and on finding an agreed upon and workable update.

The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.

The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.