Author: Jorge Timón 2016-12-02 06:35:36
Published on: 2016-12-02T06:35:36+00:00
The discussion is about a proposed soft fork to warn users of an invalid chain if there is an even-more-work invalid chain and for new nodes force a response from the user. The purpose of the soft fork is to "hold on" on the most-work valid chain while there's an even-more-work invalid chain, and for new nodes to force a response from the user. However, as a full node user, one may not want their node to "hold on" on validating new valid blocks just because there's some "longest" invalid chain out there that they may choose to follow later. Users can still be notified and forced to respond with a single invalid block (or N, or W accumulated work). A miner might prefer to keep mining on the old chain, especially in the case of a SHF, to avoid losing money due to validation uncertainty. If there is an uncontroversial hard fork, BIP9 coordination would be preferred. In the case of an unknown hard fork, it would be better to receive a warning when, say, 30% of the hashrate supports a change to the consensus rules, way before needing to decide what branch to mine.It is suggested that in the case of a SHF, a valid bit should be used instead of an invalid one, so as to trivially make old and older nodes coincide in their perception of good-willing SHFs as either HFs or SFs as we wish. However, if nodes implementing this BIP will see it as a simple hardfork, but will intentionally provide equivalent behaviour as older nodes which see it as a soft-hardfork. It is under the assumption that a HF (or a SHF) would give plenty/enough time to adapt. Therefore all warnings would be deployed in advance to any HF or SHF, with or without a previous soft fork. It is disagreed that the proposed soft fork "makes it easier to resist an un-consented-to hard fork," and, if anything, it makes it easier to disrupt the old network if it doesn't fully consent to the HF. Finally, it is not safe to assume that "un-consented-to SHFs" (or "evil HFs") will use an invalid bit to signal their intent.
Updated on: 2023-06-11T20:44:17.919042+00:00