Bitcoin vs Bitcoin Cash – A Rift Forms Bitcoin had essentially failed its first stress test and many in the community felt that changes needed to be made to the core protocol of the coin if it was to ever fulfill Nakamoto’s original vision. Top members of the Bitcoin community debated intensely over how to resolve the issue. On one side of the argument, you had long-time Bitcoiners like Roger Ver, who believed that Bitcoin’s core protocol could be changed without destroying the purpose of the coin. He and a large group of other Bitcoiners proposed an increased block size. The larger blocks could solve the problem temporarily and allow Bitcoin to again be used for daily transactions.

The other side of the debate saw Bitcoin core developers against the idea of altering such an essential part of Bitcoin’s design. These developers believed that there were other technologies such as SegWit and the Lightning Network that could help alleviate Bitcoin’s congestion without changing its original design. These developers also argued that the change could lead to endless block size upgrades in the future.