Kings of Crypto

6

Civil War

The long-awaited rebound in bitcoin’s prices, which continued into early 2016, brought delighted relief to Coinbase. But outside, in the broader world of cryptocurrency, something ugly was brewing as the tribal factions who were the bedrock of bitcoin turned on each other—and on Brian—like never before. The return of prosperity should have been a cause for celebration, but instead it accelerated a long-simmering conflict.

The source of the conflict was simple: what to do about a bitcoin network that had clogged up. The number of users on the network had grown exponentially, but the infrastructure to support them had stayed the same. This was a problem because more users meant more transactions—transactions that had to be recorded ...