It seems like everyday we hear about people talking about "scaling" Bitcoin. I'm not sure it's even actually a goal we want to have.
But let's first define it. When people talk about scaling Bitcoin, they are talking about giving as many people as possible access to Bitcoin. There is an invisible assumption here, which I'll talk about.
The other thing people talk about when "scaling" is the ability to run a Bitcoin node efficiently, both in terms of resource usage/costs and complexity of maintenance for the everyday person. I think this type of accessibility is very important to the decentralization of the protocol.
But beyond just being able to run the software, is this idea that today's world runs on billions of transactions per second, and so, it's something that Bitcoin can't do. And therefore, in order for Bitcoin to be relevant, it needs to also be able to handle that.
We could do this without any new technology if everyone had an insane amount of computing and networking resources, like the equivalent of millions of dollars in IT equipment in every home. We would just raise the sizes of blocks and be done, but the block size wars made it abundantly clear that it wasn't the right direction. I think that's still the right decision, today.
But here's the thing about "scaling to millions/billions of TXs per second". People seem to automatically assume that ideally this comes at zero or very low cost. And that, if it costs a million dollars in IT equipment for every node, then it doesn't make sense. And so, we keep banging our heads on how to scale Bitcoin with L2, and every time there's some scaling issue with L1, L2 falls apart. Well, duh. L2 will always depend on L1.
Where on earth did we come up with the idea that billions of TXs per second should come at low cost, and why do we keep thinking that's the ideal?
Oh yeah, the old fiat world. I think old habits die hard. Just as the monetary policy of the Federal Reserve believes that nothing is scarce, and it can print money ad infinitum, we have become a society who still believes there's a free lunch. But what if there isn't? What if we treated "scaling" the same way we treat Bitcoin itself? As a truly scarce asset, AND, that scarcity being one of it's STRENGTHS, not weaknesses or limitations.
Why do we think that we can have as many TXs as we want, cheap, or even free, without any additional resources? I think that might be a short-sided, toxic, fiat-based mindset. I agree there are efficiencies to be made, innovations to help us continue to drive down the costs. But the idea of cheap TXs is the world of toxic centralized fiat, where gifts fall from the sky without costs.
So what does this mean, if scaling Bitcoin isn't a goal? We're just supposed to live with high transaction fees in the order of thousands of dollars in sats/vbyte for the end of time? What, so only the super rich, super wealthy are able to do TXs? What happened to letting anyone or everyone access Bitcoin?
Well, what if I told you that not everyone deserves to access Bitcoin particularly cheaply. Everyone CAN access Bitcoin at any time, but those who choose to wait, get priced out of the system. Those who get in early, are able to transact in this limited expensive space precisely because they got in earlier than others. So just as it's getting harder and harder to own 1 FULL Bitcoin, it's accordingly getting harder to pay for more than 1 FULL Transaction (per day, or whatever).
And so, arguing that everyone should be able to do transactions on Bitcoin is the equivalent of arguing that everyone should be able to buy a Bitcoin for $1 today. But nobody is arguing for scaling the cost of buying 1 BTC to be inclusive of everyone in the world, especially those with only $1 in their bank accounts. We accept it as fact, that it's scarce, and accordingly, it's price will rise.
Now does that mean over time, fewer and fewer people will have direct access to Bitcoin? Yeah, I think it does. And I think getting access to Bitcoin becomes a privilege (just as it is expensive to buy 1 full BTC excluding people who can't afford one).
But just as you don't need to immediately buy ONE, you don't need to immediately do TONS of ON-CHAIN transactions. Yes, you want all the benefits of Bitcoin's amazing system. But perhaps the entry cost of Bitcoin's amazing system, just like the price itself, is understandably gated by a period of time where you need to build up your stack to reach the entry point.
I do believe Bitcoin is digital cash for everyone. But I don't think that means you can ignore Bitcoin for decades and still buy Bitcoin for $1 like in 2012, and I don't think that means you can do tons of transactions and still expect it to cost the same as 2 sats/vbyte like in 2012. And I think that's normal.
I think we're still at a point where there's plenty of room for more people to get into the base layer of Bitcoin. To have a wallet and move their money in. And this isn't an argument saying L2 is useless. It's very useful, and every L2 has potential cost savings and efficiencies. But I don't like the idea that the goal of any of that is to "scale" Bitcoin. It would be the same as someone trying to "scale" the price of Bitcoin so that it's always $1 to be reachable to the greatest number of people. Nobody needs price scaling.
L2 gives us a chance to let people who are late entry participants to get started stacking. And these late entry participants will quickly be the early adopters for the next wave. But at all times, late or early, everyone is subject to the economic reality of limited resources. Earth is limited. Our time is limited. Energy extracted is limited. I think we shouldn't keep fooling ourselves that TXs can be unlimited, or even should be unlimited.
And you might say, "well then there's no way Bitcoin will compete with fiat and custodial systems". And that's a horrible argument because rugpulls will demolish anyone who touches that hot garbage. They only look "cheap" on the outside, until you realize what a scam they are. Limited resources have a cost, and I think we have to stop looking for a free lunch.
Anyways, that's my two cents on why I think "scaling" Bitcoin isn't a goal, at least in the way most people are looking for near zero cost unlimited TX at infinite speed "scaling". It doesn't make sense to me unless you're willing to sacrifice the security Bitcoin provides as well as defy logic of this resource-limited world we live in.