Is Bitcoin a Captured Project? Reflections After the BIP-110 Fiasco
The most important question in Bitcoin right now is whether it is a captured project. The short answer is: we do not know yet.
On the one hand, miners managed to ignore a change proposal that did not undergo URSF. Whether they colluded or not does not matter. The crucial point is that three mining pools could decide the fate of the network. That is scary as fuck.
On the other hand, BIP-110 was a minority soft fork supported by approximately 20% of nodes. Would miners have behaved differently if BIP-110 had managed to convince a majority of the network? We do not know, but that is also scary.
At this moment, I think a hard fork is a premature idea. Before unleashing this demon, we should figure out how to test the network and answer the question above: do nodes control the network? Would it matter, for example, if a majority of them supported BIP-110?
To do this, we need a BIP that can convince more users.
Apart from this, we should focus on:
1. Supporting the development of competitive and conservative node implementations. We have Knots. We have the Production Ready idea. That is a start.
2. Supporting the decentralisation of mining.
We should also thank the Roughnecks. They have fallen in battle, but they will remain legends.
For now, we should all return to the legacy chain and work on putting it to a new test. One that will allow us to find out whether node runners are at the wheel or not.
The most important question in Bitcoin right now is whether it is a captured project. The short answer is: we do not know yet.
On the one hand, miners managed to ignore a change proposal that did not undergo URSF. Whether they colluded or not does not matter. The crucial point is that three mining pools could decide the fate of the network. That is scary as fuck.
On the other hand, BIP-110 was a minority soft fork supported by approximately 20% of nodes. Would miners have behaved differently if BIP-110 had managed to convince a majority of the network? We do not know, but that is also scary.
At this moment, I think a hard fork is a premature idea. Before unleashing this demon, we should figure out how to test the network and answer the question above: do nodes control the network? Would it matter, for example, if a majority of them supported BIP-110?
To do this, we need a BIP that can convince more users.
Apart from this, we should focus on:
1. Supporting the development of competitive and conservative node implementations. We have Knots. We have the Production Ready idea. That is a start.
2. Supporting the decentralisation of mining.
We should also thank the Roughnecks. They have fallen in battle, but they will remain legends.
For now, we should all return to the legacy chain and work on putting it to a new test. One that will allow us to find out whether node runners are at the wheel or not.
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