The Blocksize War — Jonathan Bier

Overview

The Blocksize War by Jonathan Bier is the detailed inside account of Bitcoin's defining governance conflict, roughly 2015 to 2017, over whether to increase the block size limit. Beneath that technical-sounding question lay the real stake: who actually controls Bitcoin's rules? The book chronicles the clash between "big blockers" — many businesses and miners pushing for larger blocks — and "small blockers" who prioritised keeping full nodes cheap to run and decentralisation intact. It follows the key episodes, from the various scaling proposals through the user-activated soft fork (UASF) to SegWit's activation and the eventual Bitcoin Cash split.

The strength is that it documents, in granular detail, a pivotal moment that shows how power in Bitcoin ultimately rests with users running nodes, not with companies, miners or prominent figures. The honest caveat is perspective: Bier was firmly on the small-block side, and while he's reasonably transparent about it, the narrative is told from that vantage point. It also assumes some baseline Bitcoin knowledge and is fairly niche.

Buy it if you want to understand Bitcoin's governance and the political history behind its resistance to change. It's most rewarding once you already grasp the basics of nodes, miners and forks.