Author: Andrew Chow 2017-05-23 20:58:14
Published on: 2017-05-23T20:58:14+00:00
A proposal has been made by James Hilliard for the activation of Segregated Witness at an 80% threshold, signaling at bit 4. The proposal is aimed at minimizing chain split risk and network disruption while maximizing backwards compatibility and still providing for rapid activation of segwit at the 80% threshold using bit 4. The proposal specifies a method to activate the existing BIP9 segwit deployment with a majority hashpower less than 95%. Segwit increases the blocksize, fixes transaction malleability and makes scripting easier to upgrade as well as bringing many other benefits. This BIP provides a way for a simple majority of miners to coordinate activation of the existing segwit deployment with less than 95% hashpower. The proposal is compatible with the current segwit implementation because it triggers a mandatory signaling period that will activate segwit on existing nodes. It is activated by a "version bits" with an 80% (this can be adjusted if desired) activation threshold BIP9 with the name "segsignal" and using bit 4. While this deployment is compatible with the existing "segwit" bit 1 deployment scheduled between midnight November 15th, 2016 and midnight November 15th, 2017, users should either upgrade to segsignal or wait for additional confirmations when accepting payments. By orphaning non-signaling blocks during the BIP9 bit 1 "segwit" deployment, this BIP can cause the existing "segwit" deployment to activate without needing to release a new deployment. Historically IsSuperMajority() has been used to activate soft forks such as BIP66 which has a mandatory signaling requirement for miners once activated, this ensures that miners are aware of new rules being enforced. This technique can be leveraged to lower the signaling threshold of a soft fork while it is in the process of being deployed in a backward-compatible way.
Updated on: 2023-05-20T02:26:42.919601+00:00