With the increasing adoption of Bitcoin , cypherpunks have once again risen to prominence.
As Gregory Maxwell and Peter Todd , self-proclaimed cypherpunks, and Adam Back, the inventor of Hashcash, pave a path for Bitcoin, their vision highlights a cautious approach in an attempt to not repeat the mistakes of the 90s.
Are they right or are they about to repeat the precise mistakes they wish to avoid? Embracing Bitcoin
Gregory Maxwell, one of the five core Bitcoin developers until recently, revealed in a post two months ago that he and Todd had a long history with Bitcoin.
Maxwell says: “In 2001 Peter Todd was outlining the primary challenges (search spend-twice) in the construction of a Bitcoin like system with Hal Finney and Adam Back; in 2004 I was using and collaborating with Hal on the RPOW reusable proof of work system.” While Finney was the first to embrace Bitcoin, neither Todd nor Maxwell are known to have communicated with Satoshi Nakamoto . Debate over Bitcoin’s scalability
Over the past year the duo has been at the forefront of an intense debate over Bitcoin’s scalability. The differences, surprisingly, seem minimal.
A question of “timing and priority”, says Gavin Andresen , who is of the opinion that Bitcoin should primarily scale on-chain in the short term.
Gregory Maxwell disagrees, stating in a post that “the decentralized Bitcoin blockchain is probably the most insanely inefficient mode of communication ever devised by man.”Some suggest that this may be a narrow view, looking at the code only, rather than its wider effects, such as potentially replacing bank branches or employees. Nonetheless, every node has to store and communicate every transaction. The use of layer two systems The idea is to slow down demand on nodes by the use of layer two systems, such as Lightning.According to Maxwell, from […]
