For Bitcoin Devs Inaction Might Be A Worse Option Than A Risky Decision
If you have been following bitcoin development, you should know that for the last 6 months or so we have been at a standstill with new BIPS(bitcoin improvement proposal) unable to be brought in via a soft fork and core unwilling to do a hardfork. Because a softfork requires miners to have 95% agreement, a single actor could essentially block a BIP if they don’t agree with it. There has been drama on top of this, but im just going to try and keep it as simple as possible.
Take in mind I am trying to be as unbiased as possible because I know the debate strikes a nerve with many different people. The major BIP that is really being debated at this point is segwit which stands for segregated witness and essentially by removing some data from a regular transaction, is able to fit more transactions per block. Some who have been waiting for a hard blocksize increase, which can only be done by a hardfork are against segwit because it isn’t what they wanted. While core argues that a hard fork is too risky and risks a splitting of the chain.
The two major groups here are bitcoin core and bitcoin unlimited, each with their own opinions on how to scale bitcoin to the future. I genuinely think that both sides believe in making bitcoin better, they just have different opinions of what bitcoin should be and how we should get there. The major problem however is because bitcoin is opensource with no dictator to say “we choose this” or “we choose that”, a stalemate has broken out in which neither group can really impose changes on the main code.
There are options like a user activated softfork, which basically uses node control to push a BIP in, or if bitcoin unlimited chooses to hard fork, but both these options in my opinion would branch bitcoin into two chains rather than the one. Both core and unlimited seem to agree with me on this one, so what we see now and will see in the foreseeable future is more bickering and infighting. With fees rising to levels that many are upset with and looking at coins elsewhere, I think something eventually will have to give.
In fact, in my opinion doing nothing and keeping with inactivity is more dangerous than hardforking the code to a 2mb block size. As I wrote earlier, bitcoin dominance is at all time lows and many are fed up with how much it costs to even send a simple transaction. For many who got into bitcoin like me in 2012, the idea of micropayments and inexpensive payments was part of the appeal. I understand that untraceable censorship resistant payments should come with some sort of cost, but we have the ability for that cost to be extremely low and give a better option to many people around the world, if they would just compromise on a solution.
Both sides in this debate are extremely immature and slinging shit back and forth at eachother because they disagree with their code. There is a point in time that if we don’t actually do something and implement some sort of fix to the main bitcoin chain, adoption at the levels we see now will slow. Bitcoin is relying too heavily on its network effect and there is a real possibility that can be overthrown. I think there is still hope, but it is dwindling for me and for many others by the day.
The only thing Bitcoin has going for them now is Branding...even my retired neighbor heard of it. Alt-Coins were created to improve upon the blockchain technology...but they lack the branding. I propose that Bitcoin should hard fork and adopt /rewrite/upgrade their blockchain protocol to compete with today's Alt-Coins. 10 minute confirmations are so yesterday! With BTC's current coding...the scalability problem will be Bitcoin's downfall.
This is simply not true. While Bitcoin certainly has a lot of first mover advantages, Bitcoin boasts the most secure network. Period. They also have the industry support, actual use/adoption, tons of development.
I respect your opinion. Sure. Maybe Bitcoin boasts the most secure network...but that didn't prevent Mt. Gox or BitFinex. Hackers did in fact find a way to infiltrate the Bitcoin Network that still relies heavily on Centralized Exchanges. Bitcoin is not perfect...it has flaws that Alt-Coins are trying to solve. Cheers.
Well that is only due to centralized exchanges. Bitcoin might not have all the features - I hope quality alt coins take on Bitcoin and some of the flaws.
BItcoin's killer app to date is hellacious store of value. Doing nothing doesn't break that anytime soon. Worse case, Bitcoin becomes your savings account and Litecoin + Lightning, Decred, or whatnot becomes your personal wallet. Once into crypto, it is trivial to move some portion of your wealth into another blockchain.
I don't like the idea of hardforking to large blocks before we get efficiency and that's what SegWit offers--along with a long shopping list of other innovations.
IMO the illogical and emotional appeals of the big block camp with their buggy code that has slammed their nodes like three times already, the ASIC boost, the Bitcoin 'Killswitch' in the ASIC chips... all of this points to more than just self interest and butt hurt. I think the most logical and likely explanation is Chinese officials have given Jihan 'marching orders' to slowdown or break Bitcoin into smaller pieces that can be destroyed. Why Roger Ver doesn't see this suggests he's in very deep doo as well. Or maybe he just has a massively inflated overestimation of his own abilities? Remember he said Mt. Gox was OK. There is a LOT of money at stake for the community, and total disintermediation on the not-too-distant horizon for not dumb state actors. This is a friggin' war that has to be fought.
Eh, hardforking is absolutely not what you make it out to be. Segwit as a soft fork is much more dangerous than a hard fork. Segwit is also not an efficiency gain at all - it is actually the opposite. Sure it does make second layer solutions like lightning easier but it is not essential. On chain scaling is fine.
Say what you want about BU and their bugs. None of that pertains to emergent consensus - run a core node with an EC patch, run a Bitcoin Classic or XT.
Trust me because I say so is what I'm hearing.
Don't trust me, that is the last thing I want.
A SW transaction is larger than a non SW transaction- fact.
Soft fork dangers - ehh you could argue with me but I would take a look at this post first
SW is not essential for lighting - fact
Hate BU? Core nodes with EC patch works just fine. - fact
You don't have to take my word for it!
Ok I'm not arguing... if not SegWit, what malleability fix is out there?
Flexible Transactions
Segwit is much much more than a malleability fix; it has so much bloat because of the desire to deploy as a soft fork.
But it is optional.
Optional? In that it should be deployed as a hard fork? Or that we don't need segwit in the first place, because we don't.
It is worrisome, as if they bring Bitcoin down, the whole of crypto comes down!
that not true for say if bitcoins went down only then prices will fall down rapidly but if it goes down there will be group of people who take over hard fork it and boom ad segwit, prices will take more than 5 years to recover
Here's teh proposed solution as it stands today.
![](https://steemitimages.com/0x0/https://media3.giphy.com/media/3oKIP6zNL67GTFKeqY/giphy.gif)
In my opinion Bitcoin will fail. Can you trust a currency that is reliant on vulnerable technology?? With the creation of a number of new competing cryptocurrencies being developed and eventually diluting the market. If a cyber attack occurred would your Bitcoin be safe. Would you intrust thousands of dollars to the system? How long before Government infiltrate this technology and causes it to fail? Why would Government do that? Because central banks will not tolerate a currency that they do not have complete control over, thats why. If they cause a failure in the system, then people will lose confidence in them, unless of course the federal government comes to the rescue and offers to insure the currency FDICA baby. Look what they did to Precious metals. The feds found a way to manipulate it and fix it. The banks simply print and sell enough paper contracts to dilute the market. Some say that there are up to 200 hundred paper contracts per ounce of gold. The silver and gold markets are easily moved by the simple push of a computer key. They must regulate it in order to keep the value of the dollar intact. The same is true with cryto. If they let the market run, paper currencies would diminish in value. Is it possible that the cryptocurrency was ordained by the central banks as a trial to see if people would buy into this type of monetary system? But for now enjoy the wealth it has created, just don't think they will let the party continue.
the government could hack any coin if they really hated it and like declared war on it you name it ethereum, litecoin,dash coin it can be hacked if they saw it as public enemy number 1. The US is more concerned right now in getting rid of illegal immigrants than hacking any coin
Good luck. I have to say I am impressed with BC and I love the fact that it is not regulated. Big brother always kicks over the blocks after you stacked them so neatly .
Good luck. I have to say I am impressed with BC and I love the fact that it is not regulated. Big brother always kicks over the blocks after you stacked them so neatly .
If Ethereum or Ethereum Classic can solve this issue, then we will see a new King Of Crypto! Mark my words...
Nice post
Thanks for sharing
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Both sides just keep disagreeing and that won't change in the meantime. It's frustrating but.. what can we do? or at least me, being a minimal part of the bitcoin band.
Yeah, they need to just activate Segwit, Litcoin is doing fine, it's working. Just do it!
For me - for the moment - I look at bitcoin as the savings account. I am not flipping coins to make money. That is why the world is already screwed up. I don't care how long it takes. As Ghandi said, "There is more to life, than speeding it up." I have physical gold and sliver, just like I have Bitcoin and Alt coins. Agreed, they need to sort it out, but sometimes new ideas can spawn while they are waiting, that may help towards making the decision. We are going digital what ever happens, some will fail, some will stay, but cash will be going forever.