Re: [bitcoin-dev] Reduced signalling threshold activation of existing segwit deployment

[Matt Corallo <lf-lists@mattcorallo.com>]

Given the overwhelming support for SegWit across the ecosystem of businesses and users, this seems reasonable to me.

On May 22, 2017 6:40:13 PM EDT, James Hilliard via bitcoin-dev <bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
>I would like to propose an implementation that accomplishes the first
>part of the Barry Silbert proposal independently from the second:
>
>"Activate Segregated Witness at an 80% threshold, signaling at bit 4"
>in a way that
>
>The goal here is to minimize chain split risk and network disruption
>while maximizing backwards compatibility and still providing for rapid
>activation of segwit at the 80% threshold using bit 4.
>
>By activating segwit immediately and separately from any HF we can
>scale quickly without risking a rushed combined segwit+HF that would
>almost certainly cause widespread issues.
>
>Draft proposal:
>https://github.com/jameshilliard/bips/blob/bip-segsignal/bip-segsignal.mediawiki
>
>Proposal text:
><pre>
>  BIP: segsignal
>  Layer: Consensus (soft fork)
>Title: Reduced signalling threshold activation of existing segwit
>deployment
>  Author: James Hilliard <james.hilliard1@gmail.com>
>  Status: Draft
>  Type: Standards Track
>  Created: 2017-05-22
>  License: BSD-3-Clause
>           CC0-1.0
></pre>
>
>==Abstract==
>
>This document specifies a method to activate the existing BIP9 segwit
>deployment with a majority hashpower less than 95%.
>
>==Definitions==
>
>"existing segwit deployment" refer to the BIP9 "segwit" deployment
>using bit 1, between November 15th 2016 and November 15th 2017 to
>activate BIP141, BIP143 and BIP147.
>
>==Motivation==
>
>Segwit increases the blocksize, fixes transaction malleability, and
>makes scripting easier to upgrade as well as bringing many other
>[https://bitcoincore.org/en/2016/01/26/segwit-benefits/ benefits].
>
>This BIP provides a way for a simple majority of miners to coordinate
>activation of the existing segwit deployment with less than 95%
>hashpower. For a number of reasons a complete redeployment of segwit
>is difficulty to do until the existing deployment expires. This is due
>to 0.13.1+ having many segwit related features active already,
>including all the P2P components, the new network service flag, the
>witness-tx and block messages, compact blocks v2 and preferential
>peering. A redeployment of segwit will need to redefine all these
>things and doing so before expiry would greatly complicate testing.
>
>==Specification==
>
>While this BIP is active, all blocks must set the nVersion header top
>3 bits to 001 together with bit field (1<<1) (according to the
>existing segwit deployment). Blocks that do not signal as required
>will be rejected.
>
>==Deployment==
>
>This BIP will be deployed by a "version bits" with an 80%(this can be
>adjusted if desired) activation threshold BIP9 with the name
>"segsignal" and using bit 4.
>
>This BIP will have a start time of midnight June 1st, 2017 (epoch time
>1496275200) and timeout on midnight November 15th 2017 (epoch time
>1510704000). This BIP will cease to be active when segwit is
>locked-in.
>
>=== Reference implementation ===
>
><pre>
>// Check if Segregated Witness is Locked In
>bool IsWitnessLockedIn(const CBlockIndex* pindexPrev, const
>Consensus::Params& params)
>{
>    LOCK(cs_main);
>    return (VersionBitsState(pindexPrev, params,
>Consensus::DEPLOYMENT_SEGWIT, versionbitscache) ==
>THRESHOLD_LOCKED_IN);
>}
>
>// SEGSIGNAL mandatory segwit signalling.
>if ( VersionBitsState(pindex->pprev, chainparams.GetConsensus(),
>Consensus::DEPLOYMENT_SEGSIGNAL, versionbitscache) == THRESHOLD_ACTIVE
>&&
>     !IsWitnessLockedIn(pindex->pprev, chainparams.GetConsensus()) &&
>// Segwit is not locked in
>     !IsWitnessEnabled(pindex->pprev, chainparams.GetConsensus()) ) //
>and is not active.
>{
>    bool fVersionBits = (pindex->nVersion & VERSIONBITS_TOP_MASK) ==
>VERSIONBITS_TOP_BITS;
>    bool fSegbit = (pindex->nVersion &
>VersionBitsMask(chainparams.GetConsensus(),
>Consensus::DEPLOYMENT_SEGWIT)) != 0;
>    if (!(fVersionBits && fSegbit)) {
>        return state.DoS(0, error("ConnectBlock(): relayed block must
>signal for segwit, please upgrade"), REJECT_INVALID, "bad-no-segwit");
>    }
>}
></pre>
>
>https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/compare/0.14...jameshilliard:segsignal-v0.14.1
>
>==Backwards Compatibility==
>
>This deployment is compatible with the existing "segwit" bit 1
>deployment scheduled between midnight November 15th, 2016 and midnight
>November 15th, 2017. Miners will need to upgrade their nodes to
>support segsignal otherwise they may build on top of an invalid block.
>While this bip is active users should either upgrade to segsignal or
>wait for additional confirmations when accepting payments.
>
>==Rationale==
>
>Historically we have used IsSuperMajority() to activate soft forks
>such as BIP66 which has a mandatory signalling requirement for miners
>once activated, this ensures that miners are aware of new rules being
>enforced. This technique can be leveraged to lower the signalling
>threshold of a soft fork while it is in the process of being deployed
>in a backwards compatible way.
>
>By orphaning non-signalling blocks during the BIP9 bit 1 "segwit"
>deployment, this BIP can cause the existing "segwit" deployment to
>activate without needing to release a new deployment.
>
>==References==
>
>*[https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2017-March/013714.html
>Mailing list discussion]
>*[https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/v0.6.0/src/main.cpp#L1281-L1283
>P2SH flag day activation]
>*[[bip-0009.mediawiki|BIP9 Version bits with timeout and delay]]
>*[[bip-0016.mediawiki|BIP16 Pay to Script Hash]]
>*[[bip-0141.mediawiki|BIP141 Segregated Witness (Consensus layer)]]
>*[[bip-0143.mediawiki|BIP143 Transaction Signature Verification for
>Version 0 Witness Program]]
>*[[bip-0147.mediawiki|BIP147 Dealing with dummy stack element
>malleability]]
>*[[bip-0148.mediawiki|BIP148 Mandatory activation of segwit
>deployment]]
>*[[bip-0149.mediawiki|BIP149 Segregated Witness (second deployment)]]
>*[https://bitcoincore.org/en/2016/01/26/segwit-benefits/ Segwit
>benefits]
>
>==Copyright==
>
>This document is dual licensed as BSD 3-clause, and Creative Commons
>CC0 1.0 Universal.
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