Will big blocks cause centralization?

A common misconception is that large blocks will automatically cause Bitcoin Cash to be centralized over time. When scaled responsibly, there is no reason to think that Bitcoin Cash is destined to be decentralized.

The impact of block size on decentralization in Bitcoin Cash hinges on responsible scaling strategies. While larger blocks can centralize nodes if managed recklessly, careful approaches, like Bitcoin Cash's moderate block size increases, mitigate this risk. BCH advocates scaling commensurate with hardware advancements, fostering low fees and user access. In contrast, Bitcoin (BTC) maintains a static, small block size, prioritizing numerous user-operated nodes for resilience. Bitcoin Satoshi's Vision (BSV) opted for unlimited block size, resulting in centralization due to impractical infrastructure demands, exemplifying the need for measured block size adjustments. Responsible scaling, as demonstrated by BCH, ensures decentralized and resilient networks.

Some worry that even with responsible scaling efforts, large blocks and their associated storage requirements will reduce the amount of individuals and entities willing to run Bitcoin Cash nodes. However, it is easily demonstrated that this is a very unreasonable and highly unlikely scenario. If Bitcoin Cash blocks become filled with transactions to become consistently large, that would be a clear sign of real growth, which would be associated with an increasing general interest in the chain. A growing Bitcoin Cash network would certainly coincide with an increasing amount of businesses and organizations interested in running nodes for economic and research use cases. Even if the ratio of nodes to users decreases overall, the absolute number of nodes is likely to increase dramatically in the long term.