For bitcoin industry veteran Tom Kysar, the ongoing debate over how the bitcoin network should resolve key technical concerns has, quite literally, hit home. The former head of marketing for the now-defunct startup Koinify , Kysar lives with fellow bitcoin evangelists Jacob Smith, the overseas marketing director for mining manufacturer Bitmain and Jeremy Gardner, co-founder of the decentralized prediction market Augur , both of whom he says are on opposite sides of a debate that has so far raged on blogs, forums and through headlines in The New York Times .
"I think it’s confusing the shit out of a lot of people. The house is split. [Smith] supported Bitcoin Classic and Jeremy … he’s with the Bitcoin Core guys," Kysar told CoinDesk at The North American Bitcoin Conference ( TNABC ). "I think there’s a big problem with communication with people who aren’t involved in the conversation."
Kysar is referring to a growing rift in the bitcoin ecosystem following former Bitcoin Core developer Mike Hearn’s decision to depart the project, declaring it dead due to what he perceived as unresolvable governance issues.
Since Hearn’s departure, many bitcoin miners, who process transactions on the open-source blockchain, and industry businesses have announced their intent to back Bitcoin Classic , a proposal that would increase bitcoin’s block size to 2MB, up from 1MB today.
At issue, is that this group has put forth the decision despite a recommendation from Bitcoin Core, the community’s largely volunteer development team that has backed alternate measures for handling the fix.
To Wayne Vaughn, founder of blockchain recordkeeping startup Tierion , the friction between business interests and developers is understandable. Project developers, he reasons, haven’t prioritized marketing, and as a result, are faced with the prospect that a competing team may offer a resolution.
Vaughn, however, isn’t worried about the bitcoin […]
