There is a civil war brewing in the world of Bitcoin and it has very little to do with the technical aspects of it but everything to do with politics. This is why the war is not being fought over the technical details, but has shifted over to the definition of Full Nodes.

In the sections below, I have tried my best to supply facts and summarize the 2X/Legacy perspectives as unbiased as possible. I apologize in advance if I did so unsuccessfully. But my intention in writing this article is to cut through the messy propaganda of both camps to provide clarity and context to one facet, albeit an important one, of this debate.

The Facts

Both the 2x and Legacy camp agree that Bitcoin is defined by its nodes. However, there is disagreement over what a Bitcoin Full Node is. In light of this, we must briefly consider the developmental history of Full Nodes since Bitcoin’s inception.

In 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto released his white paper on Bitcoin. In it, all users were miners and all miners were users. However, it’s important to note that only CPU’s were mentioned and that GPU’s were not even though they existed at that time. In regards to computer specialization, Satoshi expressed some hesitancy to the expected arms race brought on by GPU’s because he desired fair distribution of Bitcoin in its early stages. However, he did admit that he “(didn’t) care if wealth is concentrated.” Satoshi wrote in an email that he envisioned the nascent stages of Bitcoin to be run primarily by users but eventually the network would grow so large that its maintenance would be left to “specialists with server farms of specialized hardware.” Satoshi speculated that there would be a maximum of 100k nodes and that other nodes would specifically be lightclients. However as Bitcoin developed, computer specialization made previous generations of computer hardware irrelevant in regards to mining: CPU-> GPU-> FPGA->ASIC. This is why as of 2010, Bitcoin Full Nodes were released with mining turned off. In other words, it was only worthwhile to have mining turned on if you had specialized computer hardware. This marked the beginning of the separation between what I call the Miner Full Nodes and User Full Nodes.

The 2X Camp

This 2X camp advocates that Bitcoin should only be defined as Miner Full Nodes. They correctly point out that these were the only type of nodes Satoshi referred to in his original white paper. Furthermore, miners should determine Bitcoin’s future because they spend a significant amount of financial resources securing its blockchain. This is why Bitcoin is hashpower. Finally, they believe that centralized mining companies is not an issue because Satoshi himself saw Bitcoin’s endgame as being supported by “specialists with server farms of specialized hardware.”

The Legacy Camp

The Legacy Camp advocates that Bitcoin should be defined as both Miner Full Nodes and User Full Nodes. The nodes Satoshi referred to in his white paper assumed parity between all nodes as evidenced by referencing only CPU power. Also, he was hesitant about the “arms race” of specialized computers which reflected his economical desire to protect the Bitcoin network through fair distribution. Ultimately, Bitcoin was designed to be a distributed protocol by which all users participate in Bitcoin’s security. This is why Bitcoin is its users. Finally, they believe centralized mining companies are problematic because it goes against the principles of decentralization.