Recommended Bitcoin Fees Cross $3 per Transaction

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I’m going to be straight out honest here. This is only going to get worse. And there is one group solely responsible for this – Blockstream’s Core developers.

Increasing capacity is such a simple flick of a switch, but Bitcoin Core developers insist that any such change would require six months of testing, and will require a ‘contentious’ hardfork, and all other forms of varying lies. And the reason that flicking this switch has become almost impossible is because some people, sadly, believe them.

It is by its sheer first mover advantage that Bitcoin remains a king among cryptos to date. While developers of other cryptocurrencies have taken the obvious moves of increasing on-chain capacity as a first measure, Bitcoin remains trapped in a Jurassic age of a 1MB artificial limit, causing dangerous congestions.

It was over 90% of the DASH community that agreed to hardfork to a 2MB. There was nothing ‘dangerous’ about that hardfork whatsoever. Despite all the rhetoric we hear from Core’s echo chambers about how ‘dangerous’ a hardfork is.

Newcomers, hardforks may sound scary, but this is how upgrades are done in the land of cryptos. In my many debates I’ve been told “Oh, but Bitcoin has a much bigger marketcap, and is much riskier to hardfork”, which is a ridiculous argument. Funny that Ethereum has half of the Market Cap that Bitcoin has (and much more than BTC had last year), and yet the Ethereum community is certainly not afraid to deploy a series of hardforks to correct any matters that require attention.

Other coins are even more adventurous, such as Monero, having a dynamic blocksize which adjusts organically with demand – it’s not rocket science to ease capacity. The problems of the network today could have been resolved years ago, had the warning signs been heeded.

It’s time to call the lies, and ignore the endless rhetoric that comes from the chambers. Because all the noise that comes is designed to do one thing – stall capacity.

Users of payment systems and gateways are moving onto other options. And Bitcoin’s utility is now becoming almost entirely a store of value, and transmission of large value.

I have no doubt left in my mind now that there are elements within Blockstream that are seeking to destroy Bitcoin as we know it. I’m not saying this is unanimous across all Core devs, but it is undeniable that there are certain elements within that seek to change or destroy the fundamentals of this crypto.

When you are a developer, or a voice, and therefore viewed in some leadership capacity of a product (like Bitcoin), it becomes your responsibility to promote and to enhance your product. So when you tell a Core dev that the fees are unacceptable, and you are then told to “use fiat” instead, you have to wonder where the priorities lie.

Luke-jr is notorious for severing users from the eco-system. With responses like the above it is no wonder. It is not the answer one would expect from someone who is passionate and a believer of a product. Telling people to pay a $5 fee every time to avoid having payment issues is a sure way to get someone to never use your product again. But given we are more than halfway to that $5 mark, it seems people are going to have to pay more than that in no time.

Management of any other company would have long ago sacked any employee to speak of such a way of their product. Yet time and time again, Core devs seem to get away with murder, and yet they have the capacity to get rid of an honest bloke like Gavin Andresen, who gave them the very power they now have in the first place.

The UASF is just another method to stall any talk of another capacity increase. I’ve already written about how nothing will happen on August 1. I don’t believe Core were at any point serious about activating Segwit via a UASF – the idea is fraught with danger – to their detriment. But obstructionism is a thing Core devs are well versed at by now.

But Core need to realize, sooner or later, that the community has already decided to move on, with or without them. When half of the mined blocks don’t even come from your software anymore, it is a loud and clear message from the community telling you that you are doing something wrong.

Noteworthy, Silbert’s scaling agreement is a move that excludes Core. Even if it fails, it is an ominous warning altogether that the community will go forward without them.

Eli Afram
@justicemate