Author: Bryan Bishop 2016-03-02 16:17:31
Published on: 2016-03-02T16:17:31+00:00
Luke Dashjr discusses the upcoming subsidy halving in July and proposes a hard-fork to fix the difficulty drop algorithm. However, this proposal is controversial as hard-forks bring concerns about security, deployment, participation, readiness measurement, and backwards incompatibility. Some Bitcoin Core developers believe that hard-forks are not a good idea and should not be used. There are also concerns about "slippery slopes" and ensuring minimal monetary loss on the old chain during a hard-fork. Adam3us recently proposed that miners who are thinking of turning off equipment should gradually ramp down their hashrate, similar to how they would incur losses from no longer mining after the halving. This suggestion does not require a hard-fork, and efforts should be made to query miners and figure out if they need assistance with implementing this. While hard-forks are controversial, contingency planning and having backup plans available and tested weeks ahead of expected network events is a good idea. The protocol expects difficulty adjustment to take time, and users should be advised on which alternative payment systems to use if they expect instantaneous transaction confirmations.
Updated on: 2023-06-11T04:18:32.017462+00:00