Author: Matt Corallo 2021-02-18 15:18:08
Published on: 2021-02-18T15:18:08+00:00
The Bitcoin community is currently discussing the activation mechanism for Taproot, a consensus change that can be contentious. The activation method for Taproot is consensus code that executes as a part of a fork, which carries more risk than Taproot itself. There are differing opinions on whether LOT (lockinontimeout) should be set to true or false, with some members suggesting releasing both versions and letting users choose for themselves. However, most Bitcoin Core contributors prefer setting LOT=false in the release but allowing a community effort to release a version with LOT=true. The goal is to prepare for the possibility of miners failing to activate Taproot and arriving at the darkest timeline. While there appeared to be majority support for LOT=false, a second meeting was held to explore the arguments in depth. The arguments for LOT=true and LOT=false were outlined, and David Harding responded with an additional argument for LOT=false.Some mining pools expressed a preference for lot=false. In light of this, it is suggested that the proposal be LOT=false if they are to finalize Taproot activation parameters and propose them to the community at this time. Ariel Lorenzo-Luaces expressed concern that people assume users must upgrade to the choice submitted into code, but this isn't necessarily true. It is possible that if LOT=true is released, only a handful of people will begin running it while everyone else delays their upgrade. This could result in those handful of people becoming stuck at the moment of MUST_SIGNAL, unable to mine new blocks.Lorenzo-Luaces suggests that if there is contention about whether to be stubborn or lenient with miners for Taproot and in the future, then it may be better to not activate anything at all. Overall, the community is in favor of open discussions and preparing for worst-case scenarios to build secure systems with minimized trust in any human actors. A code review of the Bitcoin Core PR #19573 is planned for Tuesday February 23rd at 19:00 UTC on the IRC channel ##taproot-activation. The meeting participants were thanked for engaging productively and in good faith.
Updated on: 2023-05-21T00:50:35.206774+00:00