Parity-bitcoin released: a brief analysis of possible ecosystem changes

"If this is true, holy shit. Parity bitcoin client? Awesome": a tweet by Andreas Antonopoulos regarding the release of parity-bitcoin, an alternative Bitcoin client by Parity Tech. I agree, it is awesome. Let's have a look at the ecosystem dynamics of this release starting with a list of relevant people and orgs.

Ecosystem: Parity Ethereum and Parity Tech

Parity (built by Parity Tech) -- a fast and robust client for Ethereum written in Rust programming language.

Ecosystem: Gavin Wood

I coded the first functional implementation of Ethereum, invented the Solidity contract language and wrote the Yellow Paper, the first formal specification of any blockchain protocol and one of the key ways Ethereum distinguishes itself from other blockchain-based systems. My original ideas for web three date back to early 2013, but my first post on the topic was in April 2014, later followed by a less-techy version.
Gavin Wood personal website.

• Parity tech CEO
• Ethereum CTO
• advisor to a number of blockchain projects

Excosystem: Bitcoin Unlimited & Bitcoin Classic

Bitcoin Unlimited -- an alternative client for Bitcoin. Bitcoin Unlimited removes 1MB block size limit, providing miners with a way to define block size using "emergent consensus" protocol. Next block size changes wouldn't require more hardforks.
Bitcoin Classic -- an alternative client for Bitcoin. At first Bitcoin Classic increased max block size using a simple constant change. In November 2016 this changed and the project moved to a solution that put the limit out of the software rules and into the hands of the miners and nodes.

Ecosystem: Bitcoin Core

Bitcoin Core -- first bitcoin client released by Satoshi. Under control of Bitcoin Core team. Block size upper bound is set at 1MB.

Changes in ecosystem dynamics: SegWit and block size

Context:

• Bitcoin Core supports SegWit
• Bitcoin Unlimited and Classic doesn't support SegWit
• Parity is a battle tested Ethereum client that kept network running during the Ethereum ops pricing ddos when geth nodes went offline or were processing blocks too slowly.
• Bitcoin Core seems to have the best technical expertise in in c++ Bitcoin clients
• Emperically, Bitcoin Unlimited quality assurance process is lacking: critical bugs were exploited to crash the nodes
• Parity-bitcoin is written in Rust programming language, bitcoin core uses C++. Generally Rust code is "safer" (as in memory and type safety) than C++.

My analysis of parity-bitcoin code shows that it doesn't support SegWit.

Supporting links:

• A signle mention of segwit has a TODO label.
• One of two mentions of segregated witness also has a TODO label.

Parity defines block size in an easily modified constants file but I'm not sure if this is the only change required to increase the block size.

I haven't found any information regarding Parity Tech intentions to support/reject SegWit in the future. All important (including SegWit support) decisions in crypto are political so there is that. Lack of SegWit support in a v0.1 parity-bitcoin release during an uphill battle for its activation indicates me that Parity is not really interested in supporting Bitcoin Core policy.

Core tech expertise is no longer an unmatched competitive advantage and using an alternative bitcoin client has just gotten significantly safer. This is important.

Unsurprisingly Gavin Wood and Parity tech have just gained a lot of influence in the bitcoin ecosystem. It's interesting to reflect on the consequences of this release if it helps to end the block size stalemate. I think we'll see more clients by Parity Tech for monero/dash/etc.