Thu May 25, 2017 6:10 pm

Although we do not believe that a “Segwit + 2MB compromise” is the best way forward for Bitcoin, we very strongly believe that the problems facing Bitcoin today are dire and that something must be done, as soon as possible, to increase Bitcoin’s on-chain transaction capacity. Doing so is theway to alleviate Bitcoin’s exponentially rising fees and slow confirmation times. To the extent that the agreement provides a time frame, broad industry agreement, and a real block size increase, it is reasonable. Our acceptance of this agreement does not change our support for Bitcoin Unlimited or other implementations, and we will continue to push for the removal of all centrally-imposed capacity limits on Bitcoin. Any such limit will only ever serve to hinder Bitcoin’s future growth.This agreement being the first such proposal in nearly two years to find support from major industry players on both sides of the scaling debate, we felt that to remain opposed to this development because it wasn’t our ideal outcome would only prolong Bitcoin’s capacity crisis and contribute to even more division than there already is. In our view, the long term health and survival of the Bitcoin network is of greater importance than being the “winners” of the block size debate.At the same time, we have not forgotten that a previous agreement of this nature (with nearly identical terms) not only fell completely flat, but actually widened the divide in the Bitcoin community and prolonged this nasty debate by far longer than acceptable. We remain cautiously optimistic that the agreement made in New York this week may be able to bring an end, or at least temporary relief, to the existential threat that faces Bitcoin today. We wish to emphasize that while this is an agreement, it is not binding and we are not particularly attached to it. Should we feel that this agreement is not being acted upon in a timely manner, or if it begins to resemble another excuse for extended stagnation, we will quickly and emphatically withdraw our support and continue our efforts towards scaling Bitcoin on-chain, in accordance with the design of the system as outlined in the Bitcoin whitepaper