The land of Bitcoin is a place where lives can be changed. Riches can be made, and freedom can be protected. It’s a place that was created less than 15 years ago but has already made an incredible dent in the world. But that is likely only a small glimpse of the changes it will cause in the future. Perhaps the greatest mystery in Bitcoin is the identity of its creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. No one knows who he was, or if it was a single person or group working together. What we do know is that Satoshi left the Bitcoin project in 2011 and essentially disappeared.
Some people argued that Satoshi leaving Bitcoin and keeping his identity a secret was his greatest gift for Bitcoin. As his shadow would always be looming over the project. With everyone wanting to know Satoshi’s thoughts and ideas. His influence would forever shape the future of Bitcoin, similar to how Ethereum users always look to Vitalik for answers. If Satoshi truly wanted the Bitcoin network to become decentralized and be free of his influence, the only way to make that happen was to disappear.
While that might seem like a great thing, and necessary for Bitcoin to become even stronger. It has also caused most of Bitcoin’s internal battles. Perhaps in a way that is similar to how the Disney company operated after Walt Disney passed away. Everyone in Bitcoin is debating about what Bitcoin is truly intended for. What are valid use cases, and what is trash? What should the block size be, and what was the future vision of Bitcoin? The truth is that only Satoshi knew, and now the rest of us are here to debate about it.
Over the years, Bitcoin maxis have argued that Bitcoin was meant to be a store of value. That fast and cheap transactions weren’t needed. In fact, more expensive fees would benefit the chain even more. People who love innovation and aren’t of change have argued that Bitcoin’s block size should be increased. That experimenting and pushing the limits of what is possible through developments like Ordinals, BRC-20 tokens, and more should be encouraged.
As I mentioned before, Disney faced a similar situation. “What would Walt do?” Bitcoiners are doing the same thing, “What would Satoshi think?”
The hard truth is that too many in the Bitcoin space put Satoshi up on a pedestal as if they were a God. That the Bitcoin code should never be improved, and that nothing should ever happen to the block size. There’s evidence that Satoshi was a fan of innovation and experimentation on Bitcoin. With him discussing on forum posts about things that sounded just like NFTs on Bitcoin. He also was very open to increasing the block size limit. In fact, the current limit was only supposed to be temporary until more was needed.
Something that was lost over the years, was the idea that Bitcoin was always supposed to be evolving and improving to keep it up to date. As long as changes were highly thought out, tested, and had overwhelmingly consensus; Satoshi was all for it.
With that said, unfortunately, Satoshi did disappear and left us with all of these questions that we will never be able to answer. Currently, these questions and debates about what Bitcoin is, what it should be used for, and its future is what divides Bitcoin the most. In my opinion, it is the main obstacle that is standing in the way of us reaching mass adoption.
How about you? Where do you stand in the great Bitcoin debate?
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