Author: Keagan McClelland 2021-03-04 18:23:21
Published on: 2021-03-04T18:23:21+00:00
The discussion on the activation method for Taproot upgrade is ongoing on the bitcoin-dev mailing list. Some individuals support the proposal to activate Taproot through a flag day activation, while others prefer BIP8 LOT=true. However, some members of the community are confused about the opposition to LOT=true and the support for a possible flag day activation. The author suggests that concatenating a flag day activation after a LOT=false deployment should be acceptable because it is an idempotent operation. The author reminds everyone that this is a change that everyone supports so far. The activation method should not kill the proposal altogether, and those with specific objections to various activation methods should be clear about their objections and suggest small adjustments to various proposals. Bitcoin may not have voting, but it can certainly have compromise to come to consensus on these things. In the email thread, Russell O'Connor proposed a flag day activation, but Matt Corallo argued that a six-month timeline from release of new consensus rules to activation seems incredibly aggressive for a flag-day activation, let alone one with forced signaling, which would require higher levels of adoption to avoid network split risk. Russell O'Connor agreed that whatever timeline people are in favor of is acceptable, and he thinks that having a year or more between the LOT=true or flag day more and the anticipated second release date is fair. In response to concerns about divergent consensus rules on the network, Russell O'Connor suggested that a short 3 or 4-month signaling period could be used to start with "Let's see what happens." He believes that miners are ready and willing to activate, and Taproot will probably activate in two months. If it fails to activate, users will get to take active, meaningful, and observable steps to demonstrate their desire for a Taproot upgrade. There are multiple plausible and potentially acceptable paths towards activation, and the forthcoming PRs for these possibilities are eagerly awaited.
Updated on: 2023-06-14T18:57:42.876007+00:00