Author: Eric Voskuil 2017-07-06 17:41:52
Published on: 2017-07-06T17:41:52+00:00
The implementation of time-based activation windows in BIP9 causes complexity and forces nodes to either index by time or scan the chain. Jorge Timon expressed his preference for using height instead of time and suggested a simpler way to issue a warning to nodes that don't know an activated deployment. This can be achieved by using a special bit in versionbits, which doesn't require adding consensus rules as to what versionbits should be. He proposed using a MASF to deploy softforks and upgrade them to UASF on an as-needed basis. Shaolinfry had concerns about the proposal's implementation but they were addressed by Timon. Hampus Sjöberg commented on Luke Dashjr's proposal which looks similar to BIP148 and raised the question if it should be made into its own BIP instead. Luke Dashjr believed it is not pointless to have a mandatory signal and argued that it serves as a wake-up call for miners who are not upgraded yet. He also stated that it enables deploying softforks as a MASF and only upgrading them to UASF on an as-needed basis. Shaolinfry expressed his skepticism towards the idea of requiring signaling before activation because it could lead to gratuitous orphaning. Some people criticized BIP9's blocktime-based thresholds for being confusing and vulnerable to miners fiddling with timestamps. They suggested using height-based thresholds instead, which is easy to monitor and provides certainty at a given block height. If there is sufficient interest, the proposal in BIP8 can be amended to be height-based as it would be a trivial amendment.
Updated on: 2023-06-12T03:18:31.367629+00:00