Author: shaolinfry 2017-02-25 23:55:51
Published on: 2017-02-25T23:55:51+00:00
The activation mechanism for soft forks has been a topic of discussion due to limitations in the current methods, which rely on hash power to trigger nodes to enforce new rules. This method requires trust that hash power will validate after activation, and miner signaling can veto node activation, leading to "upgrade inertia". Additionally, signaling methodology is misunderstood as voting when miners' role is to select valid transactions and extend the blockchain with valid blocks, while nodes define validity according to the software they run. Soft fork rules are enforced by nodes, not miners, but miners can opt-out by not including transactions that use the new soft fork feature. Censorship soft forks do not require node opt-in since >51% of hash power can orphan blocks containing blacklisted transactions. Supermajority hash power signaling draws unnecessary attention to miners and becomes political, with some miners unwilling or unable to upgrade and become a lone reason to veto activation for everyone. An alternative proposed is "flag day activation", where nodes begin enforcing at a predetermined time in the future, which offers advantages and remains optional post-activation. Relay policy rules prevent non-standard and invalid transactions from being relayed and mined by default, and economic nodes should always remain safe by ensuring their nodes validate the current rules or place their network behind a full node that will filter out invalid transactions and blocks. A user-activated soft fork is permissive, allowing non-upgraded miners to continue mining so long as they don't produce invalid blocks. BIP9 "versionbits" soft fork activation is also permissive, allowing non-upgraded miners to continue mining without producing invalid blocks. Miners retain discretion on which transactions to mine, but the incentive to upgrade to validate is strong to avoid vulnerability to rogue miners. Users activated soft fork is win-win because it adds an option that some people want that does not detract from other peoples' enjoyment. The suggestion is to combine user-activated soft fork with BIP9 to give the option of a faster hash power coordinated activation or activation by flag day, whichever is the sooner.
Updated on: 2023-06-11T21:52:19.835748+00:00