Author: jl2012 2015-12-17 18:46:06
Published on: 2015-12-17T18:46:06+00:00
The discussion revolves around the issue of whether or not CLTV transactions are less secure than others due to the fact that only about 1/3 of nodes support BIP65. However, invalid CLTV transactions can make an entire block invalid, so having more nodes validate non-CLTV transactions won't necessarily make them any safer. The same logic applies to a Segregated Witness (SW) soft fork. While some may argue that a soft fork would make the network as a whole less secure, the security of all content in the same block must be the same by definition. Jeff Garzik points out that if SW is deployed via a soft fork, the count of nodes that validate witness data will be significantly lower than the count of nodes that validate non-witness data. Soft forks are not trustless and depend on miner trust, eroding the trustless validation of older nodes over time. Furthermore, higher security in one data area versus another produces an economic value distinction between the two goods in the basket, creating a "pay more for higher security in core block, pay less for lower security in witness" dynamic. This economic distinction does not exist if SW is deployed via a hard fork. Overall, there seems to be support for a SW soft fork initially, with a plan to eventually move to a hard fork with a higher block size limit and better commitment structure in about two years.
Updated on: 2023-06-11T02:14:49.929839+00:00