I hope this has provided some useful food for thought-- but really, what I think is missing is your thoughts. What requirements do you feel aren't being met by Core that would leave you asking such a question? (I could guess, but communication is much better than guessing.)
Hi Greg,
Thanks for the prompt and thoughtful response.
Here I am going to share with you what I saw and heard rather than my personal thoughts: I went to a Bitcoin event in Beijing last week. Some prominent Chinese Bitcoiners were also there. The sentiment was overwhelming that the ideal solution to the scaling question is implementing 2MB block size through a Core update as soon as possible. Some felt frustrated that core devs had been ignoring their demand, and this sense of frustration contributed to the conspiracy theory, which was explicitly expressed there: The Bitcoin Core team doesn't want to make a precedent because the team is controlled by Blockstream, who bet heavily on the success of Sidechains and Lightning Networks.
Some expressed the view that while SigWit has its potential, it is something never been tried before, therefore should be given more time for thorougher test; worse, some felt that it represents a development that has deviated from Satoshi's vision and eventually, led to increased complexity of the protocol to such degree that it would be forbidding to most startups.
Overall, there seems to be a sense of helplessness. Some reflected on why the Chinese had so little say in the matter and some urge that the Chinese should form their own core development team and create their own fork.
Let me know what you think as always.
BR,
Eric