Segwit2Mb - combined soft/hard fork - Request For Comments

Summary:

Bitcoin developer Sergio Demian Lerner has proposed a project called Segwit2Mb, which aims to resolve the conflict between different political positions regarding segwit activation versus an increase of the on-chain blockchain space through a standard block size increase. The proposal is designed to be seen as the least common denominator and combines segwit with a 2MB block size hard-fork activated only if segwit activates (95% of miners signaling), but at a fixed future date. Lerner's main objective is to reunite the Bitcoin community and avoid a cryptocurrency split.Lerner has coded a first version of the segwit2mb patch, but wants to wait to publish the source code until more comments have been received from the community. The activation of the hard fork was conditional on 95% of the hashing power approving the segwit2mb soft fork and the segwit soft fork being activated. Once segwit is activated, the hard fork becomes unavoidable.To prevent worsening block verification time due to the O(N^2) hashing problem, the simple restriction that transactions cannot be larger than 1 MB has been kept. Regarding the hard fork activation date, Lerner wants to give enough time to all active economic nodes to upgrade. As of March 31, 2017, 91% of nodes have upgraded to post-0.12 versions.Lerner believes delaying a compromise solution worsens the situation for the Bitcoin community. He wants to see the Lightning Network in action this year, use the non-malleability features in segwit, see the community discussing other exciting soft-forks in the scaling roadmap, Schnorr sigs, drivechains and MAST. Contributions to the segwit2mb project are welcomed and awaited. However, improvements unrelated to a 2 MB increase or segwit should not be part of segwit2Mb. This proposal should not prevent other consensus proposals to be simultaneously merged: segwit2mb is a last resort solution in case consensus on anything better cannot be reached.

Updated on: 2023-06-11T23:11:46.684165+00:00