Bitcoin devs do not have consensus on blocksize

This is a repost from reddit that I made in 5/6/2015 regarding the block size argument. You can see the full thread here: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/354qbm/bitcoin_devs_do_not_have_consensus_on_blocksize/

I am making this post to show to the public what the most active developers in Bitcoin, more specifically Bitcoin Core, think about block size increases. Contrary to what the public may think, there is no consensus amongst the developers regarding Gavin Andresen’s proposal to increase the block size to 20mb (Thanks to Peter Todd who brought this up during his Bitdevs NYC talk which I attended). The only devs that have come out in strong favor of this proposal is Gavin and Mike Hearn.

The rest are against any increase, prefer a smaller increase, or have not expressed an opinion either way but is asking for further research, development, and answers before we proceed. I believe that the public opinion has been highly swayed by Gavin, and we should strongly consider what others who have spent numerous hours on the protocol have to say on the topic. If any information here is inaccurate , or if there are others who I’ve missed , please let me know and I will edit them in. I’ve probably missed a lot of good comments from other developers because it is scattered all over the internet and my google-fu is not good (And please excuse my ham fisted way of labeling developer contribution by the # of commits on github. ).

I also apologize in advance if any developers feel like they are being called out. But I believe strongly that it's important to have public statements that have been made on the internet to be consolidated in one place for such an important topic. Especially when we have dangerous misconceptions where users think that increasing blocksize is a single parameter optimization with no costs like increasing the size of your race car engine. The topic of block size is not a technical issue, it is a political issue at heart. There are real trade offs involved, with people and entities who stands to gain on both sides of the debate.

For 20mb increase
Gavin Andresen
Current Affiliations: MIT Digital Currency Initiative, Coinbase
Bitcoin core: top 5 core developer by # of commits. Has commit access.
Comments: http://gavinandresen.ninja/

Mike Hearn
Current Affiliations: Lighthouse
Bitcoin core: top 100 core developer by # of commits. Creator of Bitcoinj .
Comments: https://medium.com/@octskyward/the-capacity-cliff-586d1bf7715e

Skeptics of 20mb increase (Note that some people here do favor a block size increase, but none has strongly committed to 20 megabytes as the exact size.)

Pieter Wuille
Current Affiliations: Blockstream
Bitcoin core: top 5 core developer by # of commits. Has commit access.
Comments: http://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net/msg07466.html

Wladaimir J. Van der Laan
Current Affiliations: MIT Digital Currency Initiative
Bitcoin core: top 5 developer by # of commits. Has commit access.
Comments: http://www.mail-archive.com/bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net/msg07472.html

Gregory Maxwell
Current Affiliations: Blockstream
Bitcoin core: top 20 core developer by # of commits. Has commit access.
Comments: http://sourceforge.net/p/bitcoin/mailman/message/34090559/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/34uu02/why_increasing_the_max_block_size_is_urgent_gavin/cqycy4h

Jeff Garzik
Current Affiliations: BitPay
Commit access: top 20 core developer by # of commits. Has commit access.
Comments: https://twitter.com/anjiecast/status/595610865979629568
http://garzikrants.blogspot.com/2013/02/bitcoin-block-size-thoughts.html

Matt Corallo
Current Affiliations: Blockstream
Bitcoin Core : top 10 core developer by # of commits
Comments: http://sourceforge.net/p/bitcoin/mailman/message/34090292/

Peter Todd
Current Affiliations: Viacoin,Dark Wallet, Coinkite, Smartwallet, Bitt
Bitcoin Core: top 20 core developer by # of commits
Comments: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/34y9ws/it_must_be_done_but_is_not_a_panacea/cqza6rq?context=3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNL1a7aKThs

Luke Dashjr
Current Affiliations: Eligius Mining Pool
Bitcoin Core: top 10 core developer by # of commits
Comments: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/34y48z/mike_hearn_the_capacity_cliff_and_why_we_cant_use/cqzadpn

Bryan Bishop
Current Affiliations: LedgerX
Bitcoin Core: various @ https://github.com/kanzure
Comments: http://sourceforge.net/p/bitcoin/mailman/message/34090516/