Author: Matt Corallo 2020-01-10 22:43:35
Published on: 2020-01-10T22:43:35+00:00
Bitcoin developer Matt Corallo has reopened the discussion on activation methods for soft forks. He laid out some basic requirements for activating soft forks in a post to the Bitcoin development email list. These include avoiding activation in the face of significant, reasonable, and directed objection, using hashpower enforcement to de-risk the upgrade process, wherever possible, and following the will of the community, irrespective of individuals or unreasoned objection.Corallo also mentioned recent history and how hashpower can bridge the gap in time between activation and then. By having a supermajority of miners enforce the new rules, attempts at violating the new rules do not result in a significant network split, disrupting existing users of the system. The goal is to avoid activating in the face of significant, reasonable, and directed objection.The author of another post discusses the best way to deploy a softfork in Bitcoin while balancing several critical goals. The post argues that achieving high levels of community engagement is crucial for successful deployment. The author suggests that BIP 9, with a well-crafted softfork, can effectively meet several goals, including readiness by miners, measurement, and community engagement.However, BIP 8 has been proposed as an alternative that addresses some challenges with BIP 9 but may fail in areas such as giving developers too much power to decide the consensus rules. The author proposes a standard BIP 9 deployment model that includes a one-year time horizon for activation with 95% miner readiness.If no activation occurs within a year, a six-month quiet period would follow to analyze and discuss reasons for the delay. A simple command-line/bitcoin.conf parameter would enable users to opt into a BIP 8 deployment with a 24-month time horizon for flag-day activation. This approach provides an extended timeframe while still ensuring meeting all goals, even if the timeframe needs further extension.The author concludes that developing Bitcoin is not a race, and waiting to ensure proper community engagement is more important than setting a negative precedent.
Updated on: 2023-05-20T21:30:34.285849+00:00