Usefully, Bier is also laudably dispassionate, although, as is the case with people with common sense, he maintains an ultimate allegiance to the small blocker camp. But it took considerable foresight to know ahead of time just how consequential these itinerant informal meetings would be. In hindsight, we know that the blocksize wars were absolutely critical for understanding Bitcoin governance and consensus - vital historical markers that are part of our accumulated knowledge. Many times I found myself thinking how lucky we are to have such a committed correspondent chronicling these events in real time with no agenda other than witnessing history. Very few individuals would have had the perspective and the direct first hand experience (or the diligence to take copious notes of panel discussions) to create an authoritative account of the conflict. Impressively, as he details in the book, he put himself through considerable rigors in order to witness the major junctures of the conflict: the in-person scaling conferences in Montreal, Hong Kong, and New York, among others. As anyone who followed this debate over the last half decade will know, actually being present for the various skirmishes was no small task. As the community once again prepares to introduce a protocol change with Schnorr/Taproot, it’s worth revisiting the changes that culminated in that tempestuous year.īier’s book is remarkable it’s largely a first-hand account. It was effectively the sole developer focus in 2017. Hundreds of millions or billions of dollars were spent fighting it. What is Bitcoin? What should it be? How should it develop? How should it change? In the end, this debate raged from 2015 to 2019 or so. The conflict in its simplest form focuses on what seems like a relatively incidental technical feature: how big should bitcoin blocks be? But as it turns out, this apparently technical discussion is a proxy for much deeper questions of governance, political control, and the very nature of the protocol. Many accounts of the war will begin in 2017, but the conflict of visions really originates in 2015, as Bier points out. I was vaguely aware of the existence of conflict but I had completely missed the early skirmishes in the Blocksize War. I had been paying fairly close attention to Bitcoin from 2014 onwards, initially on Reddit and later on Twitter, but I simply hadn’t appreciated the conflict in its earliest stages, so I was excited to brush up on my historical knowledge. So when The Blocksize War was released I picked it up immediately.
BitMEX Research is a wonderful free asset to the Bitcoin community, and I would be bitterly disappointed if Bier stopped publishing.
Bier’s repertoire is incredibly vast, and betrays a deep understanding of protocol design, crypto markets, and the broader macro context. BitMEX Research consistently produces original content, spanning a vast array of technical, historical, financial, and economic concepts.
Bier is the rarely-seen face of BitMEX Research, arguably the most insightful research desk in the industry. Jonny Bier’s The Blocksize War ($22 for the paperback on Amazon) is one such book. Sometimes a text comes along that you feel a powerful obligation to read.
Our source code has been in development since 2003 (under Azureus) and is GPL licensed.An excellent account of a revealing epoch in Bitcoin’s history♦
★ The only full torrent app for Android TV using the Leanback UI. ★ Control other BiglyBT, and Transmission RPC compatible desktop torrent clients
★ Download to SD Card via SAF (Storage Access Framework) ★ All the basic torrent features: Mainline DHT, Vuze DHT, UPnP, uTP, PEX, UDP Tracker, Encryption ★ Use Swarm Discoveries to find related torrents
★ View progress, peers, and stats of torrents ★ Select which files are downloaded before starting the torrent ★ Sort and grouping for large lists of torrents ★ Swarm Merging for faster torrent downloading and to repair torrents without seeds BiglyBT is an ad-free, fully featured open source torrent client and remote control app, optimized for phone, tablet, Chromebook, and Android TV.