Author: Erik Aronesty 2017-06-03 00:53:55
Published on: 2017-06-03T00:53:55+00:00
The Segwit2Mb proposal aims to resolve the conflict between different political positions regarding segwit activation and an increase in on-chain blockchain space through a standard block size increase. It proposes a minimal patch that combines segwit with a 2MB block size hard-fork, activated only if segwit activates (95% of miners signaling), but at a fixed future date. The primary goal of the proposal is to be minimalistic and re-unite the Bitcoin community to avoid a cryptocurrency split.The proposal does not compromise the future scalability or decentralization of Bitcoin as a small increase in block size has been proven by several core and non-core developers not to affect Bitcoin value propositions. However, the proposal recommends that spoonet and other HF improvements and a slower timeline need to be folded in before the HF activation date to make it more likely that the community adopts the whole proposal and the chain doesn't fragment.Sergio Demian Lerner has proposed a SegWit2Mb solution for the Bitcoin network, which aims to activate both Segregated Witness (SegWit) and a 2MB hard fork. The proposal specifies that SegWit will be activated before the 2MB hard fork, with tentative lock-in and hard-fork dates of April 29th and August 29th, respectively. The hard fork is conditional on 95% of hashing power having approved the SegWit2Mb soft fork and the SegWit soft fork being activated.Lerner coded a first version of the SegWit2Mb patch, but wants to wait until more feedback is received from the community before publishing the source code. The patch was built by forking the master branch of Bitcoin Core, mixing a few lines of code from Jeff Garzik’s BIP102, and defining a second versionbits activation bit (bit 2) for the combined activation.To prevent worsening block verification time because of the O(N^2) hashing problem, the simple restriction that transactions cannot be larger than 1MB has been kept. Lerner suggested that the hard-fork date should be discussed and delayed if necessary, but he believes that time works against the Bitcoin community and delaying a compromise solution is not a good option.If SegWit2Mb locks-in, all Bitcoin nodes should be updated to a SegWit2Mb enabled node before the hard fork occurs to prevent them from being forked away in a chain with almost no hashing power. Lightweight (SPV) wallets should not be affected as they generally do not check the block size.Lerner believes in the strength of a unified Bitcoin community and welcomes contributions to the SegWit2Mb project, with the only limitation being to stick to the principle that the patch should be as simple to audit as possible. Improvements unrelated to a 2MB increase or SegWit, as beneficial as it may be to Bitcoin, should not be part of SegWit2Mb.
Updated on: 2023-06-11T23:15:53.805954+00:00