Published on: 2015-12-19T23:03:20+00:00
The Bitcoin community is currently engaged in a debate over whether to implement Segregated Witness (SegWit) as a soft fork or pursue a hard fork block size increase. The primary proposal suggests a combination of fast BIP102 and slow SegWit, allowing for the evaluation of each implementation separately. The secondary proposal involves implementing fast SegWit alone. The discussion considers the potential gains in block size from these proposals and delves into technical details about block size limits and expected benefits.There is disagreement within the community about the deployment timeline of SegWit versus a hard fork. While some argue that SegWit will take longer to implement, others believe it can be deployed quickly once the code is ready. Concerns are raised about the slow rollout pace and complexity of SegWit, which creates two fee markets and introduces new attack surfaces. The economic and ecosystem risks associated with each proposal are also discussed, with evidence suggesting that a five-month pre-announcement is sufficient for a hard fork. However, it is noted that SegWit may not provide short-term scaling and a hard fork block size increase may better address these risks.In an email conversation, Jeff Garzik discusses the nature of Segregated Witness (SW) service, noting that it presents a blended price and basket of two goods. However, further details about these resources are not provided. The conversation focuses on SW as a solution to scaling Bitcoin and highlights its ability to address malleability issues. It is noted that SW creates two views of transactions and blocks, with newer clients seeing extended blocks while older clients see standard 1MB blocks. The roll-out pace for SW is expected to be slow due to the need for upgrades in wallet software and programmer libraries.A simple hard fork like BIP102 is considered automatically compatible with most ecosystem software, but concerns are raised about the economic complexities introduced by SW, such as creating two fee markets. SW is seen as unlikely to provide short-term scaling and poses risks related to economic policy and bidding structure. A "short term bump" hard fork block size increase is seen as addressing the risks that SW does not.The email exchange also discusses the proposed miner selection algorithm for block size increases, with Jeff Garzik mentioning that SW complicates block economics with two separate supply-limited resources. Pieter Wuille proposes defining the virtual block size to optimize fee per virtual block size. The importance of upgrading bitcoin-core and bitcoinj layers is emphasized, and it is noted that adopting SW is easier compared to a hard fork. Economic policy, game theory, bidding structure risks, and the need for improvement in the SW mining algorithm are also discussed.In conclusion, Segregated Witness (SegWit) is viewed as a solution with useful attributes but not a complete scaling solution. The discussion suggests proceeding with a "short term bump" hard fork block size increase alongside SegWit as independent tracks to address certain risks and ensure the security and scalability of the Bitcoin network.
Updated on: 2023-08-01T17:11:38.617774+00:00