User Activated Soft Fork Split Protection

Summary:

The conversation revolves around the viability and chances of success for BIP148, a user-activated soft fork (UASF) to implement SegWit on the Bitcoin network. The difficulty in measuring its potential success is highlighted, with metrics such as mining commitments, node signaling, and Reddit upvotes not providing conclusive evidence. Markets may offer better insight closer to BIP148 activation. Exchanges are expected to handle the splitting of transactions between chains automatically for less technical users in case of a split, although this poses a challenge due to the lack of replay protection. The risk of chain wipeout is discussed, with the non-BIP148 side carrying the higher risk. The role of economic support in dictating the outcome is emphasized over hashpower support. Segwit2x's insistence on activation bundling is viewed as a political rather than technical reason, and a hard fork for technical reasons is supported. The conversation also touches upon the ETH/ETC fork and the potential risks and advantages of BIP148.A new Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) has been proposed to mitigate the risks of a possible chain split during the activation of BIP148. The proposal, called "splitprotection", suggests using a simple majority of miners to activate mandatory signaling for SegWit ahead of the BIP148 activation date. This would eliminate the risk of an extended chain split and allow miners to respond quickly to market forces. Though there is growing support for BIP148, there are concerns that it may not have enough economic backing or hashpower initially, which could cause a lag time after the split. The proposal addresses activation timelines as the current one takes too long to activate unless started ahead of the existing SegWit2x schedule.The Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) outlines a method for the activation of SegWit mandatory signaling before the BIP148 activation date in order to reduce the chances of an extended chain split. The activation will be done through a miner majority of 65% over a 504 block interval, rather than a higher percentage, and will allow miners to signal their intention to run BIP148 to prevent a chain split. This BIP is deployed by "version bits" with a 65% activation threshold BIP9 with the name "splitprotection" and using bit 2. It starts immediately and is a BIP8 style soft fork since mandatory signaling will start on midnight August 1st 2017 regardless of whether or not this BIP has reached its own signaling threshold.The context mentions several Bitcoin Improvement Proposals (BIPs) related to the deployment and activation of Segregated Witness (SegWit), a protocol change designed to increase the transaction capacity of the Bitcoin network. BIP147 deals with the issue of dummy stack elements, which could be used to manipulate the transaction malleability. BIP148 proposes a mandatory activation of SegWit, while BIP149 suggests a second deployment of SegWit. The context also includes a link to an article on bitcoincore.org that outlines the benefits of SegWit.Lastly, the document is dual licensed as BSD 3-clause and Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal. There is also a mailing list mentioned for bitcoin developers at lists.linuxfoundation.org.

Updated on: 2023-06-12T02:02:22.721003+00:00