A recently resurfaced statement made by former Bitcoin Core lead developer and current Bitcoin Foundation Chief Scientist Gavin Andresen in 2011 has caused a stir.
In it, Andresen suggests what some users have taken to mean he favours centralization of Bitcoin.
[r]ight now, I can run Bitcoin on my home personal computer…As we scale up, that won’t be possible anymore…it will take kind of dedicated, you know fleets of computers with a high speed network interface…to actually do all the transaction processing.
Out of Context?
However, users may be overly sensitive about Andresen’s comments.
It’s no secret that the Bitcoin Foundation has come under fire recently for its paradoxical secrecy, especially while claiming to represent a decentralized, open-source protocol like Bitcoin. Several members resigned in the wake of Brock Pierce’s election, and Andreas Antonopoulos has cut all ties with the Bitcoin Foundation over their lack of transparency.
Bitcoin millionaire Olivier Janssens even offered a $100k bounty to anyone who could develop a software to replace the Bitcoin Foundation, a move that bore fruit when developer Mike Hearn created Lighthouse.
As a result, Andresen could be considered guilty by association by those who are frustrated by the Bitcoin Foundation and their actions.
However, Andresen’s statement isn’t entirely unrealistic based on the way Bitcoin has moved.
When he said it will eventually be impossible to run Bitcoin on a home computer, he wasn’t necessarily wrong. After all, back in 2011 it was possible to mine Bitcoin using only a home computer which could generate profit. That’s now next to impossible, as most serious miners are using dedicated ASIC machines.
Until Andresen clarifies his statement, we won’t know for sure. But as one of the original Bitcoin developers and one of the few to have had direct email contact with Satoshi Nakamoto, he deserves the benefit of the doubt.
The CoinFront reached out to Andresen, but received no response as of press time.
Do you trust The Bitcoin Foundation? And do you trust Gavin Andresen? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!
Gavin Andresen Statement Sparks Controversy
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