[bitcoin-dev] Yesterday’s UASF (LOT=true) kick off meeting

[Michael Folkson <michaelfolkson@gmail.com>]

Yesterday we held a UASF (LOT=true) kick off meeting on the ##uasf IRC channel.

The conversation log is here: http://gnusha.org/uasf/2021-03-02.log

It was announced (at short notice admittedly) here:
https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2021-March/018515.html

It is clear frustration is building but it is also clear that this
isn’t a conducive environment for development and review. The high
level activation discussion has been done to death. Barring a miracle
the only thing Core will ship is BIP 8 (1 year, LOT=false). The
alternative appears Core ships nothing.

At this point in time it also appears the greatest risk to Taproot
dying a slow death is a small group of developers who think talking in
conservative tones and talking about endless philosophy makes Bitcoin
a conservative system. (It doesn’t, it just makes it a dying, decaying
one).

We have a trillion dollar industry (all signed up to this upgrade)
wasting time monitoring these arguments rather than preparing for an
upgrade and preparing for the small but manageable risks that any such
upgrade entails later in the year. Development projects on hold
because there is no end in sight for Taproot activation.

We need to give miners and users the ability to activate this year
(2021). If we fail to do that through whatever means (Core, UASF
release) etc I personally will assume Taproot will never activate. I
will also assume Bitcoin is not a project for the incredibly able
people who have designed and shipped a complex upgrade (Taproot) that
miraculously has overwhelming consensus amongst the entire community.
Failing to ship activation code (a very small code change in
comparison) is a joke.

We need to get this done this year. A UASF (LOT=true) project needs to
be ready to assemble just like it was in 2017 to make sure a small
group of individuals don’t block progress. But Core also needs to be
given the opportunity to ship a BIP 8(1 year, LOT=false) activation
that can be used to activate this year that is as well reviewed and
well tested as any other Core consensus code change.

Once things have calmed down I think we should revisit what progress
has been made and take it from there.

-- 
Michael Folkson
Email: michaelfolkson@gmail.com
Keybase: michaelfolkson
PGP: 43ED C999 9F85 1D40 EAF4 9835 92D6 0159 214C FEE3