401.2 Lesson - blocksizeWars

Screen: blocksizeWars

Headline: The Blocksize Wars

Reward: 2

Text: These drawbacks lead to a debate within the Bitcoin community about the best way to scale the Bitcoin network, often dubbed the Blocksize Wars.

Companies in the Bitcoin ecosystem argued that increasing the blocksize, which is the maximum size of a block of transactions on the blockchain, would allow more transactions to be processed per second, making the network more efficient and able to handle a larger volume of transactions.

Bitcoin users on the other side of the debate argued that increasing the blocksize would centralize the network, as it would require more expensive and powerful computers to process the larger blocks, and could potentially lead to Bitcoin becoming prone to censorship.

The users ultimately prevailed in preserving the decentralization and censorship-resistance of the Bitcoin network and demonstrated that Bitcoin is controlled by users, not corporations. This also meant that scaling Bitcoin would require a different enigneering solution than merely increasing the blocksize.

=================================================================

QUIZ

Question: What was the contention in the Blocksize Wars?

Answer: Whether or not to increase the blocksize

Feedback: Correct. The users ultimately prevailed in preserving the decentralization and censorship-resistance of the Bitcoin network, showing that Bitcoin is controlled by users, not corporations

Correct: true

Answer: Whether or not to censor certain transactions

Feedback: Not quite. Both sides were publicly in favor of preserving censorship-resistance, however companies in the Bitcoin ecosystem were willing to accept some centralization in exchange for quick wins in scalability. Try again

Correct: false

Answer: Whether or not to change the consensus algorithm to proof of stake

Feedback: Haha, but no. While there are some dubious voices that demand the abolishment of proof of work in favor of proof of stake, this was never a debate in Bitcoin, and never will be. Try again.

Correct: false