Author: vjudeu at gazeta.pl 2021-09-12 19:38:47
Published on: 2021-09-12T19:38:47+00:00
Bitcoin-compatible client software can be changed, but there is no guarantee that others will run that version or shut down when desired. Miners often use custom software for mining blocks and pools, and there are many clients compatible with consensus, but different than Bitcoin Core. The Bitcoin community typically makes changes using soft-forks to preserve backward compatibility. Even "evil soft-forks" are possible, which are still better than hard-forks. On September 12th, 2021, James Lu via bitcoin-dev proposed a change where if MTP-11 is greater than 5 years after the release date of the current software version, the full node should automatically shut down. This would allow for code to be written that gives the community approximately 5 years to upgrade to a version that executes a new hard fork while keeping everyone in consensus, provided the change is non-controversial.
Updated on: 2023-06-15T01:50:59.426653+00:00