Fri Oct 28, 2016 8:10 am

1. I own a relatively large number of Bitcoin.



2. As such, I'm profoundly interested in seeing the value of that asset appreciating in value.



3. Many events over the past 18 months have proven to me, and most rational, objective/unbiased observers that a blocksize increase will lead to the following two key benefits:

1. Accelerated Bitcoin user adoption.

2. An INCREASE in the value of my Bitcoin investment portfolio.



4. Given this, I will continue to act prudently and confidently to affect this beneficial change.



5. Also, please understand that I speak for several other large holders of Bitcoin, too. We love Bitcoin... full stop. We are determined to see Bitcoin deliver on the great promise it holds for both the world at large, as well as it's promise for our respective investment portfolios.



6. Any other action on my part, or that of my Bitcoin-heavyweight compatriots would simply be self-destructive.

Hello,To me it seems that most of these points contain the same argument: You support Unlimited in good faith because you think it will lead to an increase in users adoption and price. I don't think anyone would doubt that, it's been well known forever that your are a top10 Bitcoin inverstor. I don't see why anyone would question the fact that you have Bitcoin best interests at heart considering your amount of skin in the game.Considering your portfolio of Bitcoin company, I don't remember what's the lionshare of it, I guess blockchain.info, bitpay, kraken, purse and a few others. For most of these, their market cap might not be clearly correlated to Bitcoin's price (which is the main focus of most Bitcoin's investors except the tiny minority that seeded/funded the early companies). Moreoever some business models might be actually "free-riding" on artificially cheap/unsustainable transactions fees. So on this point, I would say your interests are not necessarily completly aligned with other Bitcoin inverstors and therefore less relevant.There is a few point I would like to discuss: First the fact that you are a top Bitcoin holder doesn't mean that you know best what will lead to the highest price longterm for Bitcoin. It means that you are very bold: you went big (allin?) early. that you have an unshaking faith in Bitcoin as you kept most of them for the ride, and that you were smart/knowledgeable enough to recognize the value proposition early.Now on the negative side:- It might also mean that you have a tendency to see the world in black and white, this is also reflected in your Rothbardian ideals. You could miss some nuances and you might show a propension for maximalist positions.- It might also mean that you didn't see some of Bitcoin's shortcomings (related to scaling or the difficulty of achieving consensus for example). I remember you were promoting Bitcoin's transactions as free back then, a fact that simply can't happen in reality as the block reward is but by half every 4 years and the mining "subsidy" disappears.- And finally it might also mean that boldness must often at the cost of a lack of prudence. Maybe you don't see some of the dangers that others see ahead in an approach that would lack enough caution (Bitcoin unlimited). Also you are ok with and might be pushing for a hard fork. This might be a solution but is clearly again a "bold" move to say the least.I admire your courage, maybe some of these Bitcoin big holder peers don't have as much as you... But I don't think you can claim their support unless they have made their position known. Publicly, I only know of Olivier Jansens and maybe David A Johnston ? (not a well known figure but he claims to be an early investor on his twitter profile). My guess is there's also plenty of big holders and Core's side.To me the big problem is that if we can find big investors on both side of Core and Unlimited, most of the technical expert community belongs to Core. This fact can't be ignored. These are people who for some of them have been working on the idea of a cryptocurrency for two decades! Thinking we should get rid of them and replace them by a small number of unknown devs seems careless to me. Especially considering that Core is pushing Bitcoin forward at a pace that satisfy many other holders. Bitcoin is not a random tech company, it's a highly advanced decentralized network which few people at present can push forward. It seems to me that the people who have fallen out (Gavin for example) are now simply not knowledgeable/skilled enough anymore to make new contributions on the technical side. Even outside of the direct contributors, respected figures like Bram Cohem or Nick Szabo seem to be on Core side. I think for people who want to invest in bold devs with the "break things and fix them later so we can move forward faster" mentality while having some technical chops (seemingly lacking in Unlimited), Ethereum is the perfect value proposition.Many propositions to scale Bitcoin seem dangerously close to Dunning Kruger and the reality at the moment is that nobody has shown themselves capable of producing any significant work outside of Core.In conclusion, I would say that there are some people more on Core's side who (like me) respect you and believe in your good faith but think that you might not have the right technical background to assess the risks of the approach you are defending. I think some people are better suited to be early founders/investors. Bitcoin needed someone like you from 2011 to 2013 and your contributions have been invaluable but today it is $10B, it involves so many more people and the technical expertise required to push it forward is always increasing as the low hanging fruits are disappearing. I'm not saying at all you should disappear but I just hope you also see these other points.