Author: Eric Voskuil 2017-03-05 18:48:33
Published on: 2017-03-05T18:48:33+00:00
The security of the Bitcoin system depends on the level of decentralization in its two aspects, mining and payment validation. A small consensus is less secure than a large one as it is more prone to change or forks. Mining is highly centralized, which makes it easy to enforce a fork via miner collaboration but hard to do so without it. Therefore, enforcing a fork via the economy, specifically through economic hubs, is being discussed. However, the centralization of the economy is an area of great concern as it can make Bitcoin purely political money if changes are negotiated with a significant percentage of the economy or hash power. David Vorick suggested that the User Activated Soft Fork (UASF) is a good idea as it depends entirely on the coin price. If the UASF has a higher coin price, the other chain will be annihilated. The success of the UASF relies on major economic hubs agreeing to upgrade and exclusively accept UASF coins. A comprehensive list of 75% of the major exchanges and payment processors, as well as 75% of the wallets upgrading, would make the UASF successful in obliterating the old rules. A carefully executed UASF is riskier than a soft fork but far less risky than a hard fork. It is suggested to release a patch with a flag day set for 12 months in the future to give enough time for people to upgrade and transition. If there are not enough major economic hubs to upgrade, the flag day should remain unset as the risk of coin split will be non-zero.
Updated on: 2023-06-11T21:53:58.869085+00:00