Author: Jared Lee Richardson 2017-06-14 01:08:49
Published on: 2017-06-14T01:08:49+00:00
The proposed protocol upgrade involves using versionbits to define support signals for mining nodes, with tx version used to define current transactions. The deployment will occur in three stages, with an optional fourth stage for integrating codes of the protocol upgrade. Once activated by majority miner signal, mining nodes will orphan blocks with old versionbits and only new versionbit transactions will be allowed after two grace periods. Non-mining nodes have time to upgrade their software during the first two grace periods. The ledger in non-mining wallet nodes is honored and reserved, but users of off-chain wallet services can decide whether or not to follow service providers after receiving notification. Future protocol upgrades can be bonded with node upgrades and activated through miner votes. Risks include fluctuation of hashing power affecting the longest chain result, miners issuing false signals, and collusion between miners and wallet nodes to continue using old protocol for mining.The Bitcoin development team has proposed a new method for activating soft forks called "false signalling". The team suggests that non-mining nodes should upgrade their software with the assumption that all signals are true. However, this method may not be viable for controversial changes. Users will likely take into account markets and other factors when deciding what to do, and the total number of nodes does not necessarily indicate economic and user support. Despite the risk of miners and non-mining nodes conspiring to fork using the old protocol consensus, the team believes that by upgrading most passive non-mining nodes, their benefit can be reduced. The implementation details of this proposal are yet to be determined. The proposed method, put forth by members of the Chinese bitcoin community, aims to protect and incentivize both mining and non-mining nodes during protocol upgrades. After the activation condition is met, majority miners will set a new block versionbits after the first grace period, and the blocks with lower versionbits will be orphaned. The end of the first grace period will force all mining nodes upgraded to signal a new version of consensus. After the second grace period, mining nodes will only accept transactions with new versionbits. Transactions from nodes not upgrading will not be relayed nor included in blocks with new versionbits. This will protect funds of non-mining nodes from utilizing replay attack and will function as a notification for them to upgrade. Codes dealing with protocol upgrade could be included in the upgrade. After the non-mining node upgrades, mining nodes will vote to activate the protocol upgrade and this will achieve the broad/widespread deployment of the protocol upgrade. The original Bitcoin consensus did not consider the non-mining wallet nodes, which negatively affects their security when the chain being extended is not widely accepted by the wallet nodes. This proposed method can provide additional incentives to upgrade the protocol for the wallet nodes and ensure that the miners' nodes work on the longest chain used by other wallet nodes in the broader bitcoin sphere. Under the Nakamoto Consensus, there will be no persistent forks as protocol upgrades can be phased in. However, the resource requirements should be low enough that full validation remains possible for a large percentage of the economy.
Updated on: 2023-06-12T02:30:21.360466+00:00