From around 2015 to 2017, the community argued over how to scale. One side wanted bigger blocks for more transactions on-chain. The other wanted to keep blocks small so anyone could run a node, and scale with SegWit and layers like Lightning.
How it ended
- Several projects proposed hard forks to bigger blocks; they did not gain lasting support from users.
- Users pushed for SegWit with a user activated soft fork proposal, showing that nodes, not only miners, decide.
- SegWit activated in August 2017.
- Bitcoin Cash split off on 1 August 2017 with bigger blocks, as a separate coin.
- A compromise to also double the block size, SegWit2x, was abandoned in November 2017.
The episode showed where power sits. Large miners and companies had signed an agreement, yet the change they wanted did not happen because the people running nodes and holding the coin did not follow.