Re: [bitcoin-dev] On Hardforks in the Context of SegWit

[Tao Effect <contact@taoeffect.com>]

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Look, if we’re going to declare something an emergency, we cannot on the one hand say things like: "I strongly believe bitcoin has no place in the world if the fee raise much higher than a few cents per typically-sized transaction”, and on the other declare that there is an emergency worth redefining what *Bitcoin is* because the average txn fee is on the order of 7 cents [1] and has remained reasonable for some time [2].

If you’d like to understand what a qualifying emergency looks like, read the links:

> http://bitledger.info/why-a-hard-fork-should-be-fought-and-its-not-evil-to-discuss/
> 
> And here:
> 
> http://bitledger.info/hard-fork-risks-and-why-95-should-be-the-standard/


In terms of scaling, we are nowhere close to an emergency.

Scaling is priority #4, maybe, and it’s being taken care of.

Meanwhile, we should be directing our attention one the more pressing and serious concerns like mining centralization & privacy.

Mining centralization is a serious issue. It is *not cool* that 4 dudes (and 1 government) have the power to redefine what Bitcoin is *right now*.

Relevant post with suggestions for fixing that:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/44kwf0/the_hardfork_that_bitcoin_really_needs_not/czrh3na

As far as I can tell, P2Pool & GBT are not the same thing, but I’ve been told that P2Pool might use GBT in some way, even though it’s listed on the wiki as not using it. [3]

A hard fork would ideally enforce decentralized mining pools somehow so that transaction selection is done at the edges instead of the center.

Cheers,
Greg

[1] http://www.cointape.com/
[2] https://blockchain.info/charts/transaction-fees
[3] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Comparison_of_mining_pools

> On Feb 8, 2016, at 4:54 PM, Chris Priest <cp368202@ohiou.edu> wrote:
> 
>> Also, if you’re going to do a hard fork, you’d better make the most of it as hard forks must be a *rare* world-is-ending-if-we-don’t-do-it thing
> 
> In my opinion, the network publishing more than 1MB worth of
> transactions while the limit is still 1MB *is* an emergency worthy of
> a hard fork.
> 
> If that's not an emergency, then what is?
> 
> I strongly believe bitcoin has no place in the world if the fee raise
> much higher than a few cents per typically-sized transaction.
> 
> On 2/8/16, Tao Effect via bitcoin-dev
> <bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
>> Hard forks should always come in response to some major crisis that all
>> participants can agree is an actual crisis, as per the excellent rational
>> here:
>> 
>> http://bitledger.info/why-a-hard-fork-should-be-fought-and-its-not-evil-to-discuss/
>> 
>> And here:
>> 
>> http://bitledger.info/hard-fork-risks-and-why-95-should-be-the-standard/
>> 
>> Also, if you’re going to do a hard fork, you’d better make the most of it as
>> hard forks must be a *rare* world-is-ending-if-we-don’t-do-it thing
>> (otherwise Bitcoin cannot be considered decentralized in any sense of the
>> word).
>> 
>> So for any sort of hard fork, be sure to address the real threats and
>> challenges that are facing Bitcoin today:
>> 
>> 1. Mining centralization.
>> 2. Privacy.
>> 
>> Best regards,
>> Greg Slepak
>> 


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