Author: Luke Dashjr 2020-01-10 23:37:49
Published on: 2020-01-10T23:37:49+00:00
The activation methods for soft forks have not been thoroughly discussed and revisiting the goals for soft forks and their activation methods is necessary. The basic requirements are to avoid activating in the face of significant, reasonable, and directed objection, avoid activating within a timeframe which does not make high node-level-adoption likely, avoid losing hashpower to un-upgraded miners, use hashpower enforcement to de-risk the upgrade process wherever possible, and follow the will of the community without ever overruling any reasonable objection. BIP 9 checks most of these boxes but fails in cases of unreasonable objection. BIP 8 has been proposed as an alternative but fails in #1, #3, and #4. A BIP 9 deployment with a one-year time horizon for activation with 95% miner readiness and a six-month quieting period if no activation occurs may be the best activation method. This provides a very long time horizon for more standard activation while still ensuring that all the goals are met.
Updated on: 2023-06-13T23:03:07.337280+00:00