Author: Adam Back 2015-05-08 02:16:12
Published on: 2015-05-08T02:16:12+00:00
The email conversation between Pieter Wuille and Roy Badami, which was shared on the Bitcoin-development mailing list, discusses the potential risks of a hard fork in Bitcoin. Pieter argues that a hard fork is only safe if 100% of economically relevant users upgrade, and that a hashrate-triggered hard fork does not make sense because it is risky regardless of whether hashrate upgrades. However, Roy believes that requiring a supermajority of miners for a hard fork to go ahead is a wise precaution since beliefs can be wrong. He also questions the plausibility of a scenario where 99% of miners vote for a hard fork and the economic majority votes to stay on the old blockchain, given the significant drop in hashrate and block time. The conversation also touches on the potential power of users to change the hash function or freeze transactions in extreme circumstances.
Updated on: 2023-06-09T19:52:17.843483+00:00