Author: Adam Back 2015-06-15 18:03:25
Published on: 2015-06-15T18:03:25+00:00
A developer expresses concerns to Mike Hearn and Gavin Andresen about their decision to promote a unilateral hard-fork and code fork which are extremely high risk for Bitcoin. The existing collaborative review process that has been used for the last 4 years is a consensus by design to prevent one rogue person from inserting a backdoor or lobbying for a favoured change on behalf of a special interest group. The developer strongly urges returning to this process, as it has shared governance to avoid centralising control into the hands of one person.The developer proposes a summit of some kind, that is open attendance and video recorded so that people who are unable to attend can participate too. This would allow people to present technical proposals and risks in an unbiased way. Concerns are raised about governance and how attempting to break this process by unilateral hard-fork is extremely weakening of Bitcoin's change governance model. Change governance is important and it is important that there be multiple reviewers and sign-off to avoid someone being blackmailed or influenced by an external party. There are also concerns about security and incident response during the transition period.The email thread discusses the issue of scalability in Bitcoin and the risks associated with a non-consensus hard fork. The author points out that progress has been made on scalability, including work on CPU, memory, network bandwidth/latency, RBF, CPFP fee work, and fee-estimation. However, there are concerns about the risks of a non-consensus hard fork, which could result in network divergence, lost money, and insolvency for companies. The author suggests that unilateral action is not following the consensus governance process, and may be affecting bitcoin confidence and price.Amidst this tension, Adam Back, CEO of Blockstream, has called for a more collaborative and peaceful approach to resolving the issue. In a tweet, he urged those pushing for the hard-fork to reconsider their position and work towards a more unified solution. Back argued that a unilateral hard-fork would be "dangerous" and could harm companies and investors who have invested in Bitcoin. Instead, he called for a "calm, civil and collaborative" dialogue between all parties involved in the technical development of Bitcoin.Overall, it is emphasized that caution is necessary and adherence to the code change governance security procedure that were put in place for good reason for the security of $3b of other peoples money. People are actively working on improving decentralization, creating a plan to increase block-size in a slow fashion, and working on actual algorithmic scaling. While urgency is acknowledged, it is stressed that hasty political decisions should not be made, but rather returning to the process and submitting a BIP. Collaboration and respect are essential for the continued growth and success of the cryptocurrency industry.
Updated on: 2023-06-09T23:11:18.988845+00:00