Author: James Hilliard 2017-06-07 10:13:43
Published on: 2017-06-07T10:13:43+00:00
A proposed BIP called 'splitprotection' is being introduced to reduce chain split risk for BIP148. James Hilliard, a Bitcoin developer, has suggested that miners can use this BIP to prevent a chain split ahead of the Aug 1st BIP148 activation date. The proposal allows a simple majority of miners to coordinate activation of the existing segwit deployment with less than 95% hashpower before BIP148 activation. As the primary goal of the proposal is to reduce the chance of an extended chain split as much as possible, it is activated using a simple miner majority of 65% over a 504 block interval rather than a higher percentage. Hilliard's proposal is compatible with the existing "segwit" bit 1 deployment scheduled between midnight November 15th, 2016 and midnight November 15th, 2017. It is also compatible with the existing BIP148 deployment. This BIP is compatible with BIP91 only if BIP91 activates before it and before BIP148. Miners will need to upgrade their nodes to support splitprotection otherwise they may build on top of an invalid block. While the bip is active users should either upgrade to splitprotection or wait for additional confirmations when accepting payments.Greg Slepak, another Bitcoin developer, expressed his opinion about the proposed BIP8 style soft fork. He stated that even 55% would probably work out fine due to incentive structures, once signalling is over 51% it's then clear to miners that non-signalling blocks will be orphaned and the rest will rapidly update to splitprotection/BIP148. He also mentioned that the purpose of this BIP is to reduce chain split risk for BIP148 since it's looking like BIP148 is going to be run by a non-insignificant percentage of the economy at a minimum.Slepak also spoke about the BIP91 proposal stating that it seems perfectly reasonable. 80% instead of 95% makes it more difficult for miners to hold together in opposition to Core. It gives Core more leverage in negotiations. If they don't activate with 80%, Core can release another BIP to reduce it to 75%. Each threshold reduction makes it both more likely to succeed, but also increases the likelihood of harm to the ecosystem.A concern was raised regarding the probability that a 65% threshold is too low and can allow a "surprise miner attack", whereby miners are kept offline before the deadline, and brought online immediately after, creating potential havoc. Tao Effect also commented on the mailing thread, pointing out that "simple majority" usually refers to >50%, and could cause confusion.
Updated on: 2023-06-12T01:58:39.172045+00:00