BTCC COO Samson Mow has become a noted critic of the Bitcoin Classic team, and he was recently interviewed by Rob Mitchell on The Bitcoin Game. BTCC’s official stance is that they support the Bitcoin Core team in regards to the development of the Bitcoin protocol, and both Mow and CEO Bobby Lee were involved in a recent meeting in Hong Kong that resulted in an effective block in the activation of a hard fork to increase the block size limit to 2 MB via miners switching from Bitcoin Core to Bitcoin Classic.
During his recent appearance on The Bitcoin Game, Samson Mow explained BTCC’s support for the Bitcoin Core development team.
Bitcoin Core Knows What They’re Doing
The key point that Samson Mow attempted to make while explaining BTCC’s support for Bitcoin Core is that these developers know what they’re doing. He stated:
“They have been making good decisions to make sure Bitcoin is functioning. They’ve been patching bugs and handling security issues, and I don’t see a reason why we wouldn’t support them . . . It’s a real no-brainer of who you want to support.”
Mow also responded to the theory, which is mostly promoted on the Bitcoin subreddit /r/btc, that Blockstream has taken complete control over the Bitcoin Core development process by stating, “The Core team is a very big team; it’s not Blockstream. It’s a lot of companies and a lot of individuals.”
Samson Mow also conceded that Bitcoin Classic developer Gavin Andresen deserves credit for guiding Bitcoin through its infancy, but he also added that Andresen has since passed the torch to others. Mow continued:
“These other people — the people who are actually building and extending the system today — they know what they’re doing. They have a good understanding of the system, and you could almost say that they may know better because they’ve written a lot of the new code in Bitcoin.”
It’s important to note that Andresen is still capable of contributing to Bitcoin Core, and he still has commit access to the Github repository. The Bitcoin Core development process has taken a more consensus-based approach since Wladimir J. van der Laan took over as lead maintainer of the project. When Gavin Andresen was lead maintainer, he made the final call on contentious decisions. Satoshi Nakamoto also used this method of leadership in the earliest days of Bitcoin development.
Bitcoin Core is Not a Company
During his interview on The Bitcoin Game, Samson Mow also pushed back against the idea of Bitcoin Core as a single, centralized entity. In his view, the contributors to the software project are a collection of individuals. He explained:
“A lot of people have this perception that the Core team is almost like a company and they have to respond to their customers. A lot of these terms and phrases actually come from the Classic team, but the fact is the Core team is just a loose collection of individuals and companies that support individuals that work together.”
The BTCC COO also added that Bitcoin Core does not have a marketing arm or a customer support team. He concluded, “There are no customers. There are people who use the software that they build, which is free.”Mow’s Own Views on the Core Team Have Evolved
Mow’s Own Views on the Core Team Have Evolved
One last point Samson Mow made on his support of Bitcoin Core during his interview on The Bitcoin Game was that his own views on the Bitcoin development process have evolved over time. Mow used to be perplexed by the lack of communication from Bitcoin Core as an entity until he had a three hour conversation with Blockstream President Adam Back.
Mow added that communication from Bitcoin Core’s end has improved this year, and he even hinted that the debate caused by Bitcoin XT and Bitcoin Classic is what sparked this change.
For now, Mow thinks the Bitcoin community should simply allow the Bitcoin Core contributors to get back to work. He stated, “I think what we need to do is give the Core team time to write the code . . . These debates and the drama takes time away from them, and it slows the developers down.”