There's a common misconception that Blockstream showed up and started hiring bitcoin developers. That is not the case: Blockstream was founded by developers that contributed to bitcoin for many years before starting a company together.

> Blockstream employees have for years been extremely vocal opponents of increasing Bitcoin's block size

Yes, for many years, years before Blockstream even existed!

Edit: note that these very same developers are also pushing for segwit, which doubles the block size and the on-chain transaction capacity of the bitcoin network. It's quite odd to say they're "opponents of increasing Bitcoin's block size" given that they want to double it. What they're really against is specific proposals for increasing the blocksize, proposals which break compatibility and introduce a chain-split risk for no good reason.

That was talked over like thousands times already.

1) segwit is not "doubles the block size", effective increase is ~1.7x _AFTER_ full adoption and switching everyone to the new tx format (which is impossible for next few years). Also, it's one-time bump, can not be repeated if necessary

2) they're "introduce a chain-split risk" precisely by going against community. Without this shitshow almost zero risk upgrade was expected

1) The 1.7 figure is outdated, the latest one from a research by BitFury in November 2016 is 2.1MB [0]. It's probably somewhat higher now. Yes, it does require wallets to upgrade - but most of them (and all of the major ones) already have segwit implemented [1]. In addition, once a few of the major players that produce lots and lots of transactions upgrade, the fee pressure will level down for everyone, even these who did not upgrade for SegWit.

Yes, it is a one-time increase, but one that is sufficient for now. Let's start by doubling the block size first, collect more data, then decide how to further increase the blocksize as the need arises.

2) I'm not seeing that they're going against the community. The technical, business and wide bitcoin community are all looking forward eagerly for segwit's activation.

Edit: also, in the case of a hard-fork, users who don't upgrade gets cut off the network entirely. is it not preferable to keep them a part of the network, with somewhat higher fees but a functional wallet otherwise?

[0] https://www.weusecoins.com/eli-segwit/

[1] https://bitcoincore.org/en/segwit_adoption/

1) Still, a lot lower than required. Blocks became full like a year ago (see http://i.imgur.com/d7fwVnd.jpg ) and after that moment fitting transactions within 1MB limit means someone's stopped using bitcoin (me included :( ). +500kB is not gonna change that anyhow ( +1.1MB x 50% adoption). even +1.1MB not nearly enough.

> but one that is sufficient for now

not really - see above.

2) > The technical, business and wide bitcoin community are all looking forward eagerly

Do they understand segwit activation provides zero benefits at moment of said activation?

3) Overall, we're in the stage of planned bitcoin deconstruction. Gladly, there are no way to kill cryptocurrencies - even if bitcoin going to die, someone else will take it's place (related: see "bitcoin market share" chart)

P.S. We're talking about wrong problem. "How exactly 2MB blocks should be implemented" is surely wrong direction of talks. Yet we're here for like two years and counting. Whole ecosystem could be progressed by a lot during this time

> In addition, once a few of the major players that produce lots and lots of transactions upgrade, the fee pressure will level down for everyone

Also anyone who upgrades immediately gets the benefit of lower fees. Their transactions are halved in size, from the fee calculation perspective.

It's generally unsurprising to me that people with similar perspectives on a technology end up working at the same startup.

Knowing Rusty personally and given his long history as a FLOSS contributor, it is at least clear to me that he's speaking from his own perspective and not because Blockstream is paying him too.