Speedy Trial

Summary:

The discussion on the Bitcoin-dev mailing list centers around the process and steps involved in opposing a change to Bitcoin's consensus rules. The conversation starts with a reference to the recent activation of Taproot, which had a three-year-long coordination period before an activation method was merged. The discussion then moves on to hypothetical scenarios where users may want to resist a proposal after its release. The first step in such a situation is to explain why there is opposition to convince the proposers that there is a problem. If this fails, a futures market can be established to give miners information about which set of rules will be most profitable to mine for.In case none of these steps work, a last-ditch attempt can be made using the speedy trial approach, which allows everyone to agree not to adopt the new rules with only 10% of hashpower not signaling over a three-month period. If none of these steps work, then either a new chain can be created or defeated entirely. It is important to note that creating a new chain requires much less hashpower than previously thought; for example, BCH has 0.8% of bitcoin's hashrate while Namecoin, RSK, and Syscoin, which support merge-mining, are at 68%, 42% and 17% respectively. If it is later realized that the soft fork was a bad idea, then a soft fork can be used to forbid blocks/transactions that attempt to use the bad idea.Although a hardfork may be the best solution for some cases a posteriori, it gets out of the scope for activation mechanisms. The context provided refers to the activation mechanism that was previously considered evil or wrong only after it had been implemented. This suggests that there may have been some unforeseen consequences or negative effects associated with its implementation.It is unclear what specific activation mechanism is being referred to, but it can be inferred that it was something that was controversial or unpopular at the time. The context implies that the activation mechanism was not inherently evil or wrong, but rather these negative connotations were only attached to it after the fact.This raises questions about how society and individuals form their opinions and judgments about new technologies or systems before they are fully understood or tested. Overall, the context highlights the complex nature of technological advancements and the need for careful consideration and evaluation before widespread implementation.

Updated on: 2023-06-15T17:53:53.406346+00:00