Author: Pieter Wuille 2015-06-18 12:29:42
Published on: 2015-06-18T12:29:42+00:00
The email is a response to a suggestion made by Mike Hearn, who proposed a hardfork for Bitcoin Core. The author, Pieter Wuille, explains that while softforks can be implemented with relative ease, hardforks are much more difficult due to the fact that they require users to migrate to a new system. This migration process is risky and cannot guarantee that everyone will change their full nodes. Additionally, changing the rules should only be possible if there is wide consensus among users. Wuille argues that being able to push for a controversial change to the system sets a dangerous precedent about who is in charge of the system's rules. Furthermore, he highlights that the full node security model is designed to minimize trust in other parties in the system, and so changing the rules should be done only when there is no controversy surrounding the proposed changes. Finally, Wuille notes that technological growth in network bandwidth, processing power, and storage are good reasons why the system should be able to scale proportionally, but this scaling should not come at the cost of compromising the system's fundamental principles.
Updated on: 2023-05-19T20:46:04.737926+00:00