Author: Rusty Russell 2021-04-07 05:01:13
Published on: 2021-04-07T05:01:13+00:00
The discussion among Bitcoin developers and miners revolves around the implementation of Taproot, a proposed upgrade to the Bitcoin network. The core question is what to do if miners fail to activate it. Speedy Trial proposes to avoid unnecessary risks by pretending that miners are not asked, which makes Bitcoin stronger. During the Segwit debate, Pieter Wuille said that users should decide. However, in practice, when the normal developer/miner dynamic fails, it's necessary to have a contingency plan. LOT=true requires dropping blocks from apathetic miners and has no intrinsic tooling for gauging economic majority support, which can lead to the risk of a chain split. The compromise position is using LOT=false and having those who prefer LOT=true continue working on it for future consideration. Another way of viewing the current situation is that designing better tooling to resolve situations requiring brinkmanship before the next crisis will be invaluable. We don't need to normalize brinkmanship, but we should be normalizing the understanding that Bitcoin users are the ultimate decider.A UASF branch can be prepared along with ST, although the code is more complex, and the appropriate stop height is a few blocks later. In the end, everyone is at the whim of the economic majority.
Updated on: 2023-06-14T19:46:23.202900+00:00