Bitcoin surges as miners avert split for now

Bitcoin prices surged this week as an overwhelming majority of miners, the computer operators who maintain its network, backed a software upgrade that will boost the speed of processing transactions, likely averting a split that could have resulted in multiple versions of the digital currency.
The debate leading up to the vote marked a split that largely pitted miners and entrepreneurs, who wanted to increase block size and maximize bitcoin’s value as a payments network, versus developers who fear larger block sizes will increase operating costs for miners, driving some out and leading to more centralized control, wrote the Journal’s Paul Vigna.