Author: Adam Back 2017-09-15 09:14:13
Published on: 2017-09-15T09:14:13+00:00
The discussion on the Bitcoin-dev mailing list revolves around the possibility of preventing soft forks. While it is practically impossible to ban anyone-can-spend outputs, miners can put them validly in a block. Soft forks apply further restrictions on Bitcoin, and it is possible for a majority of miners to run soft forking code which the rest of the users are not privy to. The only way to prevent a soft fork is to hard fork against the new soft fork, like Bcash did. In principle, a soft-fork can also be soft-forked out. For example, if there was consensus against a publicly known soft-fork done by miners only that user node software did not upgrade for first by opt-in adoption, a node/user flag day soft fork could block its effects. However, most types of soft forks are opt-in, and so mostly that situation seems unlikely. A censorship soft-fork is harder to bypass with current fungibility mechanisms.The goal of some cryptocurrencies would be to have immutable consensus rules, offering investors great certainty and predictability towards being a long-term store of value. This is where the concern arises as soft-forks drag people along with them, even those who oppose the changes and never upgrade. Therefore, it is problematic, especially for a coin with permanent consensus rule immutability as a goal/ethic. It is important to note that while hard forks are always possible, they are a clear split, and something that people must opt into. Each party has to make a choice, and inertia is on the side of the status quo.
Updated on: 2023-06-12T18:45:19.487625+00:00