Author: Peter Todd 2013-06-10 05:30:02
Published on: 2013-06-10T05:30:02+00:00
The email thread discusses the idea of implementing a voting system to increase the blocksize limit in Bitcoin. The author points out that while it may be hard to say if a proof-of-stake vote is representative, it is likely the closest thing to a fair vote and certainly better than just letting miners choose. The author also notes that while people may complain about putting politics into a technical problem, it is ultimately a political issue. Voting would take control away from the core development team and put it back in the hands of the community. The vote itself will consist of a txout with a scriptPubKey form that proves one could have spent the txout. The vote must compute the median, rather than the mean so as not to allow someone to skew the vote. The rolling median and periodic reset process ensure that the limit changes gradually and is not influenced by temporary events such as hacks to large exchanges or malicious wallet software. The rolling median also ensures that for a miner, the act of including a vote is never wasted due to the txout later being spent. Implementing the voting system can happen prior to an actual hard-fork allowing for an increase and can be an important part of determining if the hard-fork is required at all. While coercion and vote buying are possible in this system, completely preventing vote buying is impossible. However, the design of Bitcoin has a fundamental feature that allows for a decentralized system. Overall, the implementation of a voting process ensures that any increase to the blocksize genuinely represents the desires of the Bitcoin community, and the process described above ensures that any changes happen at a rate that gives all participants time to react.
Updated on: 2023-06-06T18:43:53.513844+00:00