The little-blockians want the block sizes of Bitcoin to remain
small, and thus for it to be a pure decentralised currency that
can be used by anyone with a computer. This would maintain it as a
peer-to-peer currency, but would limit its growth.
By comparison, the big-blockians believe Bitcoin should grow into
a universal currency, expanding the block size to accommodate
absolutely every transaction. The downside is that this is beyond
the computational limits of domestic machines, thereby meaning
that Bitcoin could only be regulated by banks, governments, and
other large organisations: thereby moving it away from a
libertarian idyll into something more akin to a regular currency.
Oh my god, I finally understand the block size debate. I've been hearing about it forever but never understood why the size mattered to so many people so much or why there was a debate at all.
