Most crypto users assume that Bitcoin will never be able to scale.
Many people within the cryptosphere believe that Bitcoin cannot scale. Even Bitcoin maximalists believe this, to an extent. They view the Lightning Network as the 2nd layer that allows scaling. But even then most maximalists believe that the 1st layer won't scale, instead opting to outsource scaling to the second layer and beyond. Whether or not that is a viable solution is debatable.
I've heard many people make the claim that over time Bitcoin fees will simply skyrocket to the moon and it will cost over $1000 to make a single transaction. This would in turn limit Bitcoin use to the richest people and institutions in the world (only million+ dollar transfers make sense in this scenario). This logic makes sense in certain contexts. The block reward keeps decreasing and the token price keeps increasing. Surely the fees will continue to go up exponentially as well.
But that's just the theory, and the reality of the situation is far from the theory. At the heart of this is perhaps the Lightning Network, but there are other factors in play as well. For example, custodians of Bitcoin provide an infinite amount of scaling opportunity. An exchange can trade around fake derivative Bitcoin all day long completely off-chain. Of course we all know the risks to derivative Bitcoin: it only works if the centralized agent is not only trustworthy, but also competent and immune to cyber attacks, which is essentially impossible to guarantee.
However, the biggest reason why Bitcoin will scale into the future has a very simple answer: the block size. Most of the cryptosphere just automatically assumes that Bitcoin's block size will never be increased. I personally guarantee that this is a very aggressive and perhaps even foolish assumption to make. The block size will be raised; it's only a matter of time.
It's easy to see why many would brush this idea away and dismiss it completely without a second thought. After all, both BCH and BSV where born of the block size debate. Given all that drama, how could we possibly assume that the Bitcoin network would finally capitulate and increase it?
The answer to this is simple: Bitcoin fees are not $1000. In fact, Bitcoin fees during the 2021 bull run were significantly lower than fees during the 2017 bull run ($50+). I believe the highest fees I ever saw this most recent time around were about $20, and at these prices and network usage it's fairly easy to transfer around any amount of Bitcoin for less than $1 in the present time.
I think one of the most understated reasons for why Bitcoin will increase the block size is that Bitcoin will eventually be flipped in market cap by another token. This will in turn flip maximalist's worldview upside-down. Many literally believe that such a thing is impossible, when all it would take is Ethereum going x3. Maximalists believe this can't happen because Ethereum is "centralized", but they fail to consider that Ethereum's market cap can x10 simply because it is centralized and centralized money can pour into it at any time in an attempt to take over the network with a money attack. Certainly, this would be an ironic twist of fate. But then again, markets are anything but rational; something maximalists refuse to understand in a seemingly willful act of defiance of how the real world operates.
Another obvious reason Bitcoin will eventually increase the block size is the simple fact that technology upgrades are outpacing the cost of running a Bitcoin node. Even though all data on the Bitcoin network is static and permanent the blockchain only increases in size 1-2 megabytes every 10 minutes on average. Using a 1.5 MB average, that's a 79 gigabyte increase per year. That's nothing compared to the cheap terabyte hard-drives we can buy right now, imagine what that number will be like in 10 years. It's almost guaranteed that we'll be able to buy petabyte hard drives by then and it won't cost an arm and a leg. Will Bitcoin really only be increasing in size by 79 GB per year once we get to the 2030's? It sounds absurd when stated out loud. It will be even more absurd if on-chain transactions are $100+ and the cost to run a Bitcoin node is basically nothing and not increasing the block size has been crippling the network for years as it tumbles down the market cap rankings. There is no way the Bitcoin network is willingly going to allow that to happen in real time.
The entire reason for keeping the block size small is so that it's cheap and sustainable to run a node. Bitcoin has to do this because Bitcoin does not allocate inflation to nodes like Hive does. Hive nodes can be massive because we directly incentivize their operation. Bitcoin nodes can not. It's that simple. However, in ten years when Bitcoin fees are out of control it only makes sense to increase the block size because doing so will not really increase the cost of running nodes. It will only be seen as a scaling solution at that time with very little (if any) drawbacks.
Conclusion
Bitcoin is scalable.
The Lightning Network might go somewhere (no promises).
Bitcoin custodians allow off-chain transactions (but require trust).
The block size will be increased.
It's only a matter of time before it does.
Likely either in response to ridiculous fees, or being flipped in MC.
I guarantee it.
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