For eight years, Bitcoin — “magic internet money” as its fans like to call it — has defied its detractors and survived numerous stumbles to become worth more than $1,100 a coin.
But in the last couple months, a two-year-long standoff over how to increase the transaction capacity on the network — aka “the block size debate” — has escalated to a crisis point, with two sides threatening to use their versions of a nuclear option to get their way.