Author: Adam Back 2015-09-30 18:15:03
Published on: 2015-09-30T18:15:03+00:00
On September 30th, 2015, Mike Hearn addressed a proposal to change BIP101 to a "real" hard-fork. The response was that there is no such thing as a "real" hard fork, and SPV clients don't need any changes to follow the new chain with BIP 101. BIP101 is a hybrid, acting as a hard-fork for full nodes but also a soft-fork for SPV clients. Despite this, there is no consensus on CLTV at the moment, even though it has been discussed. When people asked what the specific benefits of doing soft-forks were, the answer was that they are lower risk than hard-forks, making it a faster way to deploy non-controversial changes. With CLTV being useful for improving lightning efficiency, it can help improve Bitcoin's scalability. However, forks are a different and interesting topic, so it shouldn't be conflated with a discussion about future deployment methods. Overall, soft-forks have more experience, while hard-forks are inherently riskier.
Updated on: 2023-06-10T23:14:48.641791+00:00