Author: jl2012 at xbt.hk 2015-07-23 16:23:21
Published on: 2015-07-23T16:23:21+00:00
This is a draft BIP proposing a change to Bitcoin block headers' version field to indicate a hardfork deployment and alleviate related issues. Hardforks are considered difficult and risky due to requiring support of miners and the Bitcoin economy, possible unawareness of full nodes and SPV nodes following old consensus rules, and unexpected reorgs. The proposed mechanism introduces an explicit "point of no return" in the blockchain through a flag block that must be publicly verifiable with only blockchain data and programme source code. This block must have the hardfork bit set to 1 and include a unique description of the hardfork in its coinbase, among other rules. The hardfork bit must be turned off in its descendants until the next hardfork deployment. When a flag block is found on the network, warning systems may alert users and/or stop accepting incoming transactions if it is an unknown hardfork. The proposal breaks backward compatibility intentionally but is compatible with the BIP XX "Version bits" mechanism. After the flag block is generated, a miner may support either fork but not both.
Updated on: 2023-06-10T03:50:08.097650+00:00