Author: Ryan Grant 2021-04-07 01:20:15
Published on: 2021-04-07T01:20:15+00:00
The Bitcoin community is currently discussing the activation of Taproot, and the question of what to do if miners fail to activate is a core issue. Speedy Trial proposes the strategy of pretending that miners didn't actually have a chance to activate, which some argue is a political approach to avoid facing an awkward question. However, this approach avoids unnecessary risk and makes Bitcoin stronger by including deescalation in the strategy toolkit.On the other hand, LOT=true faces the awkward question and requires dropping blocks from apathetic miners, but there is no contract under which they can raise a complaint. Additionally, gauging economic majority support has zero intrinsic tooling, which could lead to a chain split. A compromise position is suggested by using LOT=false while continuing to work on a LOT=true branch for future consideration.The current situation can be viewed as an opportunity to design better tooling to resolve a crisis that requires brinkmanship, but it's unnecessary to normalize brinkmanship. Moreover, designing such tooling before the next crisis does not require selecting convenient host features to strap the tooling onto for testing. It's already possible to prepare a UASF branch along with ST without requiring LOT=false, although the code is more complex and the appropriate stop height is a few blocks later.Finally, despite a well-explained NACK, some are prepared to run code that overrides it due to the reasons mentioned above. The discussion is ongoing, and the Bitcoin community will continue to work towards the best possible solution for activating Taproot.
Updated on: 2023-06-14T19:46:50.156356+00:00