The block size debacle is catastrophic for Bitcoin's governance model...
The block size debacle is going to cause big problems down the road...
The block size debacle needs to be solved ASAP because updating will take time...
But why are so many people crying that the sky is falling RIGHT NOW? Unless I'm seriously mistaken, I can send a Bitcoin transaction any time I want, even when blocks are full and mempool is backlogged, simply by spending a few cents in transaction fees. So that means I can't use Bitcoin for micropayments, but so what? We've known that wasn't practical for awhile now. If I want to send any amount of money over a few dollars, the necessary fee for inclusion in an imminent block is minimal.
I agree that this is a big issue for the future, and needs to be solved today so that it can be implemented before crisis levels approach, but at this moment it hardly seems catastrophic!
Also, I haven't been following the whole thing too closely...so basically a for-profit company called Blockstream is funding Bitcoin development, so core developers are basically in their pocket. Blockstream doesn't want a blocksize increase because they are the same people that are developing the Lightning Network concept, which means its in their best interest for the block size controversy not to be solved, since they can magically fix it with their for-profit product (LN)? Am I right? The whole thing is nightmarish, and a perfect example of why Dash's DGBB is so far ahead of where BTC is...
Bitcoin's halving is around the corner and there is a concern that this will create mempool transaction problems on Bitcoin's network on a larger scale then previously witnessed
which will form problems for third party's that use nul-confirmation transactions (it opens them up for double spending)
There is also fear that in the end Bitcoin will be directerd towards handling just the bigger transactions for higher fees, drifting away from the vision that Satoshi had for Bitcoin.
This will give Dash opportunity to grow though, cornering perhaps the smaller, faster transactions market for less fees.
Not to mention the scalability problems that Bitcoin is facing with declining full nodes, which Dash solved with its two-tier network.
Why is the halving expected to increase Bitcoin traffic / mempool size?
The effect on 0-conf makes sense...didn't think about that.