On Saturday, a rival version of the web-based cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, was released. According to Reuters, the rival version of the current software was reported to have been released by two of Bitcoin's key players namely, Gavin Andresen-who was said to have been chosen as a successor by Bitcoin's elusive creator, Satoshi Nakamoto and Mike Hearn-one of the senior developers along with Andersen.
Since its inception, Bitcoin has provided the means to move money quickly and anonymously without the need for third-party verification thus making it attractive all users including crooks. It has been reported that that Anderson and Hearn have been arguing with the other three lead programmers over the decision to enlarge the "blocks" in which transactions are done. Another source says that Mike Hearn and Gavin Andresen have been vocal supporters of the proposal to increase the "block" size from 1 MB o 20 MB to facilitate the growth of Bitcoin as a global currency. Hearn's camp believes that unless the numbers are increased soon, the system could run out of capacity and crash as early as next year. According to the source, Hearn has warned that with this transactions could take hours to confirm and fees could rocket. On the other hand, the other camp believes that increasing the "blocks" would turn Bitcoin into the conventional payment system.
The new version called Bitcoin XT comes out after months of argument. Reuters has reported that it would increase the block size to 8 megabytes, which would allow up to 24 transactions to be processed every second. Furthermore it was stated in the said report that those who are against Bitcoin XT believe that the bigger block size opposes the idea of the "decentralized" payments system that bitcoin is built on. With these two versions, some estimate that this could be the end of Bitcoin. But Hearnhas told Reuters that that whether or not Bitcoin XT was adopted, the crypocurrency would live on.
