Long Post Inscription – The Emperor’s New Clothes of Big Blockism

Extended Post Emblazonment - Embracing the Naked Truth of Giant Size Ideology

Familiar recipe, familiar taste.

The war has finally ignited.

From 2014 to 2017, the Bitcoin community engaged in a battle, big and small, known as the Bitcoin wars. Chinese miners, along with exchanges, and Bitcoin purists, began a life and death struggle, ultimately resulting in the split into BCH and BSV. Chinese miners were even labeled as “mining tyrants”.

The leaders of the small block faction were Adam Back and Greg Maxwell, who later formed Blockstream and developed the Bitcoin sidechain Liquid Network. Therefore, there has always been a conspiracy theory in the community that suggests Blockstream was willing to split the Bitcoin network to promote their own sidechain, advocating for smaller blocks and opposing Bitcoin’s scalability, all for the sake of the Liquid Network.

• Bitcoin’s new bull market kicks off 6 charts show that 80% of BTC wallets have made a fortune.
• The Protocol Bitcoin Censorship or Just ‘Spam Filtering’? Decrypting the Battle Between Control and Efficiency
• Liquid Assets Crypto Trading Volumes Skyrocket to $481 Million Daily in November, Says Latest Report!

Regardless of the conspiracy theory, over the years it has become evident that the small block faction had foresight regarding the development of larger block forks.

In 2023, driven by Chinese retail investors and exchanges, a new wave of “big blockism” is launched, using inscriptions as the carrier.

The core of the inscription issue is still Bitcoin’s scalability, essentially a battle between big and small blocks.

Of course, the inscription is market-driven, but Bitcoin is ultimately a small cup, and the inscription is like a tornado in the cup, squeezing out the normal transactions.

I used to be a big blockist too, believing that technology should meet the needs of the majority, but eventually reconciled.

Bitcoin is religion and value storage, requiring extreme conservatism and inflexibility;

Ethereum is progressivism, requiring updates and rapid iterations;

There’s no need to choose one or the other. Each has its own fans. If you like excitement and innovation, you can play with Ethereum or sidechains. Is it not good to let Bitcoin be a quiet value storage?

The battle between big and small blocks involves the positioning and scalability of Bitcoin, not only a technical dispute, but fundamentally a dispute about the understanding of “what Bitcoin is”.

If Bitcoin follows the path of accelerated technocentrism, satisfying all the needs of all users, then it must have unlimited scalability, not just for assets like inscriptions;

From 2013 to 2015, there were many projects attempting to implement smart contract functionality directly on Bitcoin. This would expand Bitcoin’s positioning into a universal smart contract platform and asset platform. The reality is, even with Ethereum’s flexible architecture, achieving such scalability is very difficult. It is impossible to achieve technically without abandoning Bitcoin’s other core demands.

Big-blockism patchwork-style expansion, taking one step at a time, is rash and speculative. Treating the symptoms rather than addressing the root cause can’t possibly solidify Bitcoin’s underlying foundation. As an asset platform, Bitcoin doesn’t have to be as flexible as Ethereum. Similarly, as a value asset, you can’t be more reckless than Ethereum.

So, it’s not that Bitcoin lacks the dream of the stars and the sea, but rather that over the past decade of attempts, it has found its greatest common denominator in terms of technology and narrative, and also incidentally “solved” the scalability problem.

How did Bitcoin solve the scalability problem?

Bitcoin’s approach is to adjust the narrative and become “digital gold” and a non-sovereign currency. In this narrative, scalability becomes a pseudo-proposition, a problem to be solved by Ethereum.

In the narrative of digital gold, tps (transactions per second), and scalability itself become “pseudo-propositions”. Physical gold has an annual turnover ratio of less than 1% of its inventory. As a value store, Bitcoin doesn’t require high-frequency transactions on the main chain, so tps and scalability are not issues at all.

In fact, Ethereum’s solution to the scalability problem is similar. It turns the mainnet into a settlement network (expensive, slow, but stable) and lets Layer 2 solutions truly address the scalability and tps challenges.

But here’s the problem: If Bitcoin lacks high tps and on-chain transactions, where do the high transaction fees come from? Without high transaction fees, how can network security be ensured when Bitcoin is fully mined in 2140? This core question is the fundamental logic behind big-blockism proponents pushing for unlimited scalability.

To be honest, this is indeed Bitcoin’s Achilles’ heel, a problem that currently has no solution. However, it’s a problem that won’t need to be faced until 2140. If Bitcoin reaches $100 trillion, I believe it will force everyone to create a new token model and consensus to solve the “transaction fee” issue.

While small-blockism proponents may not be able to answer the core question of “when the block reward ends, how can the low transaction fees of low-capacity Bitcoin maintain network security,” the scalability proposal of big-blockism is clearly a direct and destructive blow to Bitcoin’s core value. Unlimited scalability means constant changes and introduction of technical risks. In the end, big-blockism proponents still can’t solve the scalability problem within the existing framework, instead leading to bloating, inefficiency, centralization of nodes, and extremely high technical risks. All of these are fatal blows to Bitcoin’s core positioning as digital gold, unshakeable security, and permanent value storage.

Small-block and big-block, both have their drawbacks, so let’s take the lighter one. I believe that small-blockism is logically more consistent, leaving the “transaction fee” problem for holders a hundred years from now. On the other hand, big-blockism’s patchwork-style expansion brings immediate negative impacts due to short-sightedness.

As a holder, it’s certainly good to have a vibrant Bitcoin ecosystem, but Bitcoin can’t satisfy everyone’s needs. Balancing the tension between technology and desire may be a problem that holders, traders, miners, and exchanges all need to consider.

Without a stable and immutable underlying technology, Bitcoin cannot become the ultimate store of value, and high transaction fees are merely a fleeting illusion.

The issue of the inscription is just a minor episode in the debate between the big block and small block routes. Perhaps there are technical alternative solutions that can find the greatest common denominator between the two factions;

Instead of endlessly forking, it’s smarter to sit down and have a reasonable conversation.

We will continue to update Blocking; if you have any questions or suggestions, please contact us!