Author: Billy Tetrud 2022-05-08 17:36:01
Published on: 2022-05-08T17:36:01+00:00
The email context is centered around discussions within the bitcoin-dev mailing list, where members exchange technical information and collaborate on Bitcoin-related projects. The recent email thread involved a debate regarding the process of proposing new features for Bitcoin, with some advocating for designers and developers to lead while others believed demand should come from the market and consensus should be the priority.There were also concerns raised about the potential centralization and harm to fungibility that could result from adding complicated features to Bitcoin's base layer. The proposed covenant opcode called CTV was also debated, with members discussing its simplicity and effectiveness. The importance of defending consensus and focusing on what everyone wants instead of speculative features was emphasized during the discussion.However, personal attacks were made during the conversation, which were criticized by others. This has caused confusion and fear within the Bitcoin community, especially with the recent attempt to activate a contentious soft fork. To prevent this from happening again, people should avoid personal attacks, look at technical details, read all posts in detail with different opinions, and better document how Bitcoin's technical consensus process works today.The Bitcoin technical community needs to evaluate and offer an upgrade or set of upgrades to improve Bitcoin's capabilities for self-sovereignty, privacy, scalability, and decentralization. There is a need to address the concerns many in the community have around the negative potential of covenants and better explain the trade-offs between levels of functionality. Lastly, conversations about activation and release mechanisms need to be renewed, and priors around why Speedy Trial may have been acceptable for Taproot but not BIP-119 need to be re-examined.
Updated on: 2023-06-15T20:16:29.377543+00:00