Author: Zheming Lin 2017-06-14 19:04:21
Published on: 2017-06-14T19:04:21+00:00
The conversation between Jameson Lopp and Zheming Lin highlights the issue of users having a real choice in Bitcoin upgrades, especially with the degree of centralization in pools. Lin questions whether users should have the choice to follow miners or not. Lopp explains that Bitcoin is not a democracy and users can voice their opinions on various communication platforms, but measuring meatspace consensus is tricky. The white paper refers to majority hashpower needing to be honest with regard to determining the correct chain within the context of many possible/valid chain forks. It is not referring to using hashpower to determine the correct chain amongst an infinitely variable number of currently invalid chain forks. If miners dislike a change, they can leave and the genuine node will leave the chain if it does not like the change, thus restraining the majority miners acting foolishly. In terms of soft forks, if the only change miners make is to stop confirming transactions that have a version less than X, then it should be a soft fork.
Updated on: 2023-06-12T02:30:54.448120+00:00