Author: Luke Dashjr 2015-09-04 21:01:09
Published on: 2015-09-04T21:01:09+00:00
In a message posted to bitcoin-dev mailing list, Andy Chase asked who makes high-level Bitcoin decisions: miners, client developers, merchants, or users. He proposed setting up a system where everyone can have a say and clear acceptance can be reached. For hardforks, economic consensus is crucial, with people accepting payment in bitcoins weighed by their actual volume of such payments. For softforks, a majority of miners is needed as they can "51% attack" miners who don't go along with it. Anything else does not necessarily need universal agreement. Individual software projects can make their own decisions. If someone doesn't like a decision in Core (for example), they can safely fork the code. If any significant number of people use their fork, then the BIP is accepted whether or not Core later adopts it. This "system" is really describing a lack of a system - that is, what naturally must happen for changes to occur. Softforks have a relatively mature technical method for measuring support and deploying, but the same thing is impractical for hardforks. Some formal way to measure actual economic acceptance seems like a good idea to study. However, it needs to be reasonably accurate so as not to change the outcome from its natural/necessary result.
Updated on: 2023-06-10T22:03:15.440412+00:00