Author: Paul Sztorc 2017-05-22 06:17:07
Published on: 2017-05-22T06:17:07+00:00
The author of this email has been working on "drivechain", a sidechain enabling technology, for some time. The technical information site, changes to Bitcoin related to drivechain, and a blank sidechain template are provided in the email. The author has been seeking feedback in person at various conferences and meetups over the past year, most prominently Scaling Milan, and plans to seek feedback at Consensus2017 in New York City.This upgrade would have significant scaling implications as it removes the blocksize limit from "the Bitcoin system" by adding sidechains through soft fork. People who want a LargeBlock bitcoin can move their BTC to such a network, and their txns will no longer have an impact on "Bitcoin Core". This upgrade may put an end to the scalability debate forever. Blind Merged Mining (BMM), which is a relatively new concept, is included in this work, allowing SHA256^2 miners to merge-mine these "drivechains," even if they are not running the actual sidechain software. BMM is not required for drivechain, but it addresses some of the last remaining concerns.Some people feel that a maximum blocksize limit is needed to ensure that future total equilibrium transaction fees are non-negligible, but the author presented on why he does not agree eight months ago, and reviewers have stopped bringing this complaint up.The author juxtaposes his proposal with a recent "Scaling Compromise," stating that his drivechain proposal is better on both fronts as it would not require a hardfork and could almost immediately add any amount of extra blockspace. In contrast, the "Scaling Compromise" would immediately activate SegWit and then HF to double the non-witness blockspace to 2MB within 12 months.Lastly, the author admits that anyone who worked on the first generation or second-generation sidechain technology will find this very different and expresses pessimism about any conversation that involves scalability. He suggests people work on whatever they are passionate about until their problem either is solved, it goes away for some other reason, or until they all agree to stop talking about it.
Updated on: 2023-06-12T00:59:14.162034+00:00