Inscription: "The Emperor's New Clothes of Big Blockism".

2023-12-07 11:09

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Original Title: "Inscription - The Emperor's New Clothes of 'Big Blockism'"

Original Source: Mindao

Familiar recipe, familiar taste.

The war has finally ignited.

From 2014 to 2017, the Bitcoin community engaged in a years-long battle over large and small blocks. Chinese miners, along with exchanges and Bitcoin purists, fought for their preferred path forward, resulting in the creation of BCH and BSV after the defeat of the large block camp. Chinese miners were also labeled as "mining overlords".

The leader of the small block faction in the encryption industry is Adam Back and Greg Maxwell. Later, they formed Blockstream and engaged in the development of the Bitcoin sidechain Liquid Network. Therefore, there has always been a conspiracy theory in the industry that Blockstream is willing to split the Bitcoin network and advocate for small blocks in order to promote their own sidechain, while opposing Bitcoin's expansion and promoting Liquid Network.

Conspiracy theories aside, after all these years, it is clear that small-block proponents have foresight when compared to the development of large-block forked chains.

In 2023, driven by Chinese retail investors and exchanges, a new wave of "Big Blockism" movement was launched, with inscriptions as the carrier.

The core issue of the inscription is still the expansion of Bitcoin, essentially the debate between big and small blocks. Of course, the inscription is driven by market demand, but Bitcoin is still a small cup, and the inscription is like playing a tornado in the cup, squeezing it hard will inevitably lead to normal transactions being squeezed.

I used to be a big blockist, believing that technology should meet the needs of the widest population, but later I completely reconciled.

Bitcoin is a religion and a store of value that requires extreme conservatism and century-long stability.

Ethereum is progressive, requiring updates and rapid iteration;

We don't have to choose between the two, everyone has their own preferences. If you like excitement and innovation, you can play on Ethereum or sidechains. Is it not good to let Bitcoin be a quiet store of value?

The debate over large and small blocks involves the positioning and scaling of Bitcoin, and is not only a technical roadmap dispute, but fundamentally a cognitive dispute about "what is Bitcoin".

If Bitcoin adopts the acceleration technologist's approach of large blocks to meet all users' needs, it must have unlimited scalability, not just for assets like inscriptions;

From 2013 to 2015, many projects attempted to implement smart contract functionality directly on Bitcoin. This expanded Bitcoin's positioning to a universal smart contract platform and asset platform. In reality, even with Ethereum's flexible architecture, achieving such scalability is very difficult. It is impossible to achieve technically without abandoning other core demands of Bitcoin.

Big blockism and patchwork expansion, taking one step at a time, is reckless and opportunistic. Treating symptoms instead of the root cause cannot solidify the foundation of Bitcoin. As an asset platform, Bitcoin doesn't need to be as flexible as Ethereum, but as a valuable asset, it cannot be more reckless than Ethereum.

Therefore, it's not that Bitcoin lacks the dream of the vast universe, but rather, in the past decade of attempts, it has found its greatest common denominator in technology and narrative, and incidentally "solved" the scalability issue.

How did Bitcoin solve the problem of scalability?

The solution for Bitcoin is to adjust the narrative, becoming "digital gold" and non-sovereign currency. Under this narrative, scaling becomes a false proposition, so let's leave the scaling problem to be solved by Ethereum.

Under the narrative of digital gold, tps and scaling have become a "false proposition". The physical turnover of physical gold is less than 1% of inventory per year, and as a value store, Bitcoin does not require high-frequency transactions on the main chain, so tps and scaling are not a problem.

Actually, Ethereum's solution to the scalability problem is similar in nature. It transforms the main network into a settlement network (expensive, slow, and stable), allowing L2 to truly solve the scalability and TPS challenges.

But here comes the problem, where do the high transaction fees come from if Bitcoin doesn't have high TPS and on-chain transactions? And if Bitcoin is fully mined by 2140, how can network security be ensured without high transaction fees? This core issue is the fundamental logic point that big block advocates use to push for unlimited scaling.

To be honest, this is indeed the Achilles' heel of Bitcoin, and it remains unsolved at present; but after all, it is not something we need to face until 2140. If Bitcoin reaches 100 trillion US dollars, I believe it will force everyone to form a new token model and consensus to solve the "transaction fee" problem.

Block size advocates, although unable to answer the core question of "the end of block rewards, low-capacity Bitcoin's low transaction fees cannot maintain network security", the expansion proposal of big block advocates is obviously a direct and destructive blow to the core value of Bitcoin; unlimited expansion means constant changes and introduction of technical risks. In the end, big block advocates still cannot solve the scalability problem of the existing framework, but instead lead to bloated, inefficient, centralized nodes, and extremely high technical risks. All of these are fatal blows to Bitcoin's core positioning as digital gold, unbreakable security, and permanent value storage.

Small blocks and big blocks, both have their drawbacks, choose the lighter one; I believe that small blockism is more logically consistent and leaves the "transaction fee" problem to the holders a hundred years later; while big blockism, with its patch-like expansion, brings immediate negative effects due to its short-sightedness.

As a holder, it is good to see a lively Bitcoin ecosystem, but Bitcoin cannot meet all the needs of everyone. Balancing the tension between technology and desire is a problem that holders, traders, miners, and exchanges all need to consider.

Without a stable and unchanging technological foundation, Bitcoin cannot become the ultimate store of value, and high transaction fees are also a temporary illusion.

The inscription issue is just a small episode in the dispute between the large block and small block routes. Perhaps there is a technical alternative solution that can find the greatest common divisor between the two factions. It's better to sit down and talk about the numbers instead of forking again, which would be foolish.