Segregated Witness has been merged!

[achow101]

After months of testing, coding, and work, Segregated Witness has finally been merged into Bitcoin Core: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/8149.

Now that it has been merged, there are a few things that need to be done before release, and many things that will come after Segwit that builds upon it: https://bitcoincore.org/en/2016/06/24/segwit-next-steps/.

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[Lauda]

I was closely following the situation regarding the merge. As soon as I left my house, as my laptop is running reindex, it got merged. Anyhow, this is great news. RC1 will hopefully be released soon.
Update:

When is activation?

That is not yet known at this time.

I am still in two minds, if this is good or bad for Bitcoin. We need scaling, and we need innovation... but is this the only solution?

This is innovative scaling, unlike a block size increase.

[Denker]

So finally the big upgrade we all were waiting for is coming!
Thanks to all developers and reviewers for their hard and passionate work.
Well done guys! This is a great day!

[Kprawn]

When is activation? I am still in two minds, if this is good or bad for Bitcoin. We need scaling, and we need innovation... but is this the only solution? Who benefits the most out of this? There are still

some unanswered questions.. but at least we are moving forward with something. I feel like someone with multiple personalities syndrome.  ... We waited a long time for SegWit and now that it's

here, it's a bit of a anti climax.  Well hopefully this will silence some people now.

[Carlton Banks]

When is activation? I am still in two minds, if this is good or bad for Bitcoin. We need scaling, and we need innovation... but is this the only solution? Who benefits the most out of this? There are still

some unanswered questions

There's a contradiction here: you've been making concerned gestures for a while, but you're telling us today that you haven't spent enough time answering your own questions about Segwit. I don't know what to say, er, the truth is out there? Are you sure you care about this subject as much as you make out?

[AgentofCoin]

That's one small step for a bitcoin, one giant leap for Bitcoin-kind.

[LFC_Bitcoin]

This is excellent news, genuinely happy about this. Just in time for more transactions & increased adoption after the halving when the price will spike

[ronald98]

When is activation?

It depends on the miners. Any miners that choose to upgrade to 0.12.2 can produce blocks that are like a vote for segwit. After 95% of blocks have been produced by miners "voting" for segwit in a 2,016-block long retarget period segwit will be locked-in, about two weeks after that it will activate.

https://bitcoincore.org/en/2016/06/24/segwit-next-steps/

Deployment plan

The following plan describes how segwit is expected to be deployed.

Merge to master (without mainnet activation code): after Bitcoin Core developers “ACK” (approve) the final segwit pull request, it will be merged into the Bitcoin Core master Git repository branch. The code that is being merged will include everything in segwit except for the activation code. This will make it easy for developers to test other features on top of segwit, such as compact blocks. Activation on testnet has already occurred so users and developers may experiment and test segwit on testnet.

Backport to 0.12 branch: the unactivated code will be backported to the 0.12 maintenance branch and the backport will receive its own testing.

Choosing the BIP9 parameters: BIP9 is a soft fork deployment mechanism that allows miners to signal their readiness to enforce new consensus rules. Each soft fork made with BIP9 chooses when miners can begin signaling for the soft fork, when the soft fork is considered unsuccessful if not enough miners have signaled for it, and which bit in the block header version field will be used by miners to signal their readiness. These parameters will be selected at this time and implemented along with the code to activate segwit on both the master and 0.12 branches.

Release candidate phase: after all developer testing is successfully concluded, a release candidate (probably named 0.12.2RC1) will be publicly provided to anyone willing to test the code. Miners, merchants, and wallet vendors are especially encouraged to test. If any problems are found, they will be fixed and a new release candidate will be issued. This will be repeated as necessary until a release candidate is found with no known problems.

Binary release: the final release candidate will have its version changed to the final release version (expected to be 0.12.2) and will be released for all users to download and begin running at their leisure (segwit is a soft fork, so upgrading is only required if they plan to use segwit features).

Miners upgrade: miners who choose to upgrade to 0.12.2 will be able to start producing blocks that signal readiness to enforce segwit once the date defined as segwit’s BIP9 started date is reached.

Lock-in: once 95% of blocks in a 2,016-block long retarget period have signaled that their miners are ready to enforce segwit, segwit will lock-in – meaning that unless the blockchain is rolled back at that point, segwit will become active (see next point).

Activation: 2,016 blocks (about two weeks) after segwit is locked-in, it will activate. That means all full nodes running segwit-aware code will begin requiring miners to enforce the new segwit consensus rules.

Wallets upgrade: similar to the P2SH soft fork in 2012, after segwit activates it will not immediately be safe for wallets to upgrade to support segwit. That’s because spends from segwit transactions look like unsecured transactions to older nodes, so if the blockchain is forked soon after segwit activates, those spends could be placed in an earlier block that is not subject to segwit’s rules. For this reason, it is suggested that wallets avoid upgrading for a few weeks after segwit activates. Allowing that extra time to pass provides extra security to wallet users, although anyone who wants to test with a small amount of money they can afford to lose can begin spending as soon as segwit activates. Users can also begin testing immediately using testnet or regtest with the proposed segwit code or (when available) any release containing segwit.

However on May 23, 2016 bitcoinmagazine said antpool will not "vote" for segwit without a block size increase.

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/antpool-will-not-run-segwit-without-block-size-increase-hard-fork-1464028753

[BillyBobZorton]

Very good news, Core dev keep making impressive upgrades to BTC. Many good news and a great time to buy before we go to the next uprise.

[rizzlarolla]

This is innovative scaling, unlike a block size increase.

Innovative scaling, like the dao.
The segwit disaster is lurking.

It is not to late yet, adoption may never come.
Bitcoin may yet be saved.

[AliceGored]

This is innovative scaling, unlike a block size increase.

According to Jihan Wu, who controls Antpool (25% of global hashrate), there won't be any live segwit without a HF blocksize increase for 2017 activation.

So we get both! (or neither) Cool!

[Quickseller]

According to Jihan Wu, who controls Antpool (25% of global hashrate), there won't be any live segwit without a HF blocksize increase for 2017 activation.

So we get both! (or neither) Cool!

[img ]https://i.imgur.com/S89dQkA.png[/img]

This is very good, and is very important that he holds his ground. Bitcoin is in desperate need of a max block size increase, and as long as the blockstream core devs hold a veto card for any HF, it will be difficult to get a max block size increase without withholding support for something that the blockstream core devs need.

[unamis76]

Good news. This is well needed! But what's with the backporting again? Just update the current version and end support for older versions... Makes no sense.

[Carlton Banks]

According to Jihan Wu, who controls Antpool (25% of global hashrate), there won't be any live segwit without a HF blocksize increase for 2017 activation.

So we get both! (or neither) Cool!

[img ]https://i.imgur.com/S89dQkA.png[/img]

This is very good, and is very important that he holds his ground. Bitcoin is in desperate need of a max block size increase, and as long as the blockstream core devs hold a veto card for any HF, it will be difficult to get a max block size increase without withholding support for something that the blockstream core devs need.

Core team are increasing the blocksize, Segwit is that increase. They're increasing more than what the Antpool owner has demanded, so what his issue is, I'm not sure tbh. Let's not all forget that Antpool might have ~7% hashrate today, but tomorrow is another story. Even next Tuesday is a bit uncertain

[Lauda]

Innovative scaling, like the dao. The segwit disaster is lurking.

Here we go again: Complaining without actually doing anything that could be remotely considered helpful. The Segwit code does not have something that could be a potentially huge disaster such as the DAO one. A lot of the code (as described) is for testing.

So we get both! (or neither) Cool!

Let's stall consensus and blame Core afterwards. Good idea!  

Good news. This is well needed! But what's with the backporting again? Just update the current version and end support for older versions... Makes no sense.

They have an informative website that contains good information now: Lifecycle.

[rizzlarolla]

They're increasing more than what the Antpool owner has demanded, so what his issue is, I'm not sure tbh.

You need to catch up chum.

[AliceGored]

According to Jihan Wu, who controls Antpool (25% of global hashrate), there won't be any live segwit without a HF blocksize increase for 2017 activation.

So we get both! (or neither) Cool!

[img ]https://i.imgur.com/S89dQkA.png[/img]

This is very good, and is very important that he holds his ground. Bitcoin is in desperate need of a max block size increase, and as long as the blockstream core devs hold a veto card for any HF, it will be difficult to get a max block size increase without withholding support for something that the blockstream core devs need.

Core team are increasing the blocksize, Segwit is that increase. They're increasing more than what the Antpool owner has demanded, so what his issue is, I'm not sure tbh. Let's not all forget that Antpool might have ~7% hashrate today, but tomorrow is another story. Even next Tuesday is a bit uncertain

You may have been out of the loop, that's OK Carlton, it's difficult keeping up with everything.

Everyone at the agreement understood segwit could provide up to 1.8MB (less than 2, afaict) equiv if everyone uses segwit(which they won't). I suggest you carefully read the agreement as it sounds like you have been misinformed, or are simply uninformed.  

https://medium.com/@bitcoinroundtable/bitcoin-roundtable-consensus-266d475a61ff

Antpool has 17% of the hashrate today (we were both wrong but I was closer ). Also, they were not the only mining pool to be a signatory to that agreement, there is a good chance that Jihan is sticking his neck out and taking the heat for the rest of them.



The fact remains, an agreement was reached with people who have the power to keep segwit unactivated unless their quite reasonable counter request is met. Without Core making a tiny compromise, segwit very likely could remain a monumental hypothetical coding exercise.

Cheers  

[rizzlarolla]

After months of testing, coding, and work,

Er, that fucks it for me.

Just increase the blocksize for now please Jihan, segwit needs more, er, testing.

[topiOleg]

So we get both! (or neither) Cool!

Let's stall consensus and blame Core afterwards. Good idea! 

The HK agreement between miners and blockstream (basically Core) represents consensus. It clearly says both 2 MB hardfork and Segwit to be delivered. Doing one but not the other one is actually stalling - not to mention breaking intentionally agreement is quick way to loose all credibility - not best day for Bitcoin if it really happens considering blockstream basically represents Core, the most used Bitcoin full node implementation today.

[achow101]

So we get both! (or neither) Cool!

Let's stall consensus and blame Core afterwards. Good idea! 

The HK agreement between miners and blockstream (basically Core) represents consensus. It clearly says both 2 MB hardfork and Segwit to be delivered. Doing one but not the other one is actually stalling - not to mention breaking intentionally agreement is quick way to loose all credibility - not best day for Bitcoin if it really happens considering blockstream basically represents Core, the most used Bitcoin full node implementation today.

Blockstream does not "basically represent core". That is a common misunderstanding spread by r/btc FUDers.

The Hong Kong agreement explicitly states that the hard fork code would be ready within 3 months of Segwit's release, something that has not happened yet. The miners agreed that they would run Segwit in production in the meantime. IT DOES NOT SAY THAT BOTH A HARD FORK AND SEGWIT WOULD BE DELIVERED AT THE SAME TIME.

[AliceGored]

The Hong Kong agreement explicitly states that the hard fork code would be ready within 3 months of Segwit's release, something that has not happened yet. The miners agreed that they would run Segwit in production in the meantime. IT DOES NOT SAY THAT BOTH A HARD FORK AND SEGWIT WOULD BE DELIVERED AT THE SAME TIME.

While your capitalized sentence is correct... it doesn't tell the whole story.

SEGWIT WILL NOT BE ACTIVATED UNTIL/UNLESS HF CODE FOR A FUTURE (mid-late 2017) HF IS RELEASED IN A CORE BINARY.

So... people should not get too excited about the additional capacity generated by moving signatures to witness until the HF code is released by core.

Activated Live Segwit and HF (for 2017 activation) do come together as a package, yet they don't activate together.

[achow101]

The Hong Kong agreement explicitly states that the hard fork code would be ready within 3 months of Segwit's release, something that has not happened yet. The miners agreed that they would run Segwit in production in the meantime. IT DOES NOT SAY THAT BOTH A HARD FORK AND SEGWIT WOULD BE DELIVERED AT THE SAME TIME.

While your capitalized sentence is correct... it doesn't tell the whole story.

SEGWIT WILL NOT BE ACTIVATED UNTIL/UNLESS HF CODE FOR A FUTURE (mid-late 2017) HF IS RELEASED IN A CORE BINARY.

So... people should not get too excited about the additional capacity generated by moving signatures to witness until the HF code is released by core.

Activated Live Segwit and HF (for 2017 activation) do come together as a package, yet they don't activate together.

Says who? I don't see it in any part of the agreement that segwit and a hard fork will come packaged together. If you are referencing antpool, then they are breaking the agreement as the agreement does not say that segwit and the hard fork will be activated at the same time.

[AliceGored]

The Hong Kong agreement explicitly states that the hard fork code would be ready within 3 months of Segwit's release, something that has not happened yet. The miners agreed that they would run Segwit in production in the meantime. IT DOES NOT SAY THAT BOTH A HARD FORK AND SEGWIT WOULD BE DELIVERED AT THE SAME TIME.

While your capitalized sentence is correct... it doesn't tell the whole story.

SEGWIT WILL NOT BE ACTIVATED UNTIL/UNLESS HF CODE FOR A FUTURE (mid-late 2017) HF IS RELEASED IN A CORE BINARY.

So... people should not get too excited about the additional capacity generated by moving signatures to witness until the HF code is released by core.

Activated Live Segwit and HF (for 2017 activation) do come together as a package, yet they don't activate together.

Says who? I don't see it in any part of the agreement that segwit and a hard fork will come packaged together. If you are referencing antpool, then they are breaking the agreement as the agreement does not say that segwit and the hard fork will be activated at the same time.

Directly from the agreement:

We will run a SegWit release in production by the time such a hard-fork is released in a version of Bitcoin Core.

So... not running a Segwit release before the HF version of Core is released is perfectly allowable by the agreement.

All I can see is that Jihan is no fool. He knows that if he activates Segwit without getting Core to comply with their side of the bargain, he will be screwed over. Core will simply attempt to squeeze all additional demand into Lightning Network via artificial scarcity, which will siphon fees away from miners, destroying their business.

[topiOleg]

The HK agreement between miners and blockstream (basically Core) represents consensus. It clearly says both 2 MB hardfork and Segwit to be delivered. Doing one but not the other one is actually stalling - not to mention breaking intentionally agreement is quick way to loose all credibility - not best day for Bitcoin if it really happens considering blockstream basically represents Core, the most used Bitcoin full node implementation today.

Blockstream does not "basically represent core". That is a common misunderstanding spread by r/btc FUDers.

Blockstream was created by several of the most active Bitcoin core developers. It represents over 10 Bitcoin core developers who provide together most commits to Bitcoin core. So blockstream basically represents Core is true from this perspective.

We will run a SegWit release in production by the time such a hard-fork is released in a version of Bitcoin Core.

So... not running a Segwit release before the HF version of Core is released is perfectly allowable by the agreement.

You nailed it. The agreement allows this, plus it makes much more sence for Core to merge both HF and Segwit at the same time so the HF change is not as problematic for non mining full nodes as well (who sometimes dont upgrade so often and Segwit is handy).

[7788bitcoin]

Sorry for being naive... I understand Seg Wit will help bitcoin to scale... Just curious: Is bitcoin the first crypto-coin with Seg-Wit or has any other Alt-coin incorporated Seg Wit?

[achow101]

Sorry for being naive... I understand Seg Wit will help bitcoin to scale... Just curious: Is bitcoin the first crypto-coin with Seg-Wit or has any other Alt-coin incorporated Seg Wit?

Pretty sure that it is the first. Segwit has been tested in multiple testnets though and in a completely separate Elements Sidechain.

[achow101]

Very good news, Core dev keep making impressive upgrades to BTC. Many good news and a great time to buy before we go to the next uprise.

Are you being serious or joking? The core developers have done everything but run Bitcoin directly into the ground.

Are you being serious or joking? The core developers have done everything they can to keep Bitcoin from running directly into the ground. They are constantly trying to improve Bitcoin and think of new ways to improve Bitcoin.

[AliceGored]

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. I was fairly concerned about them running into a capacity cliff and bleeding into ETH or something… but that DAO hack + bailout fork was a godsend… an arguably insurmountable crisis for the next biggest competitor.

The good news… this buys some time. Hopefully Core reluctantly, but in good faith, holds up their side of the HF for 2017 bargain… segwit activates first, which allows a good amount of time (full year) for the vast majority of full nodes to upgrade, leading to a seamless HF in latter 2017. More utility for BTC, and a bigger base for interesting and necessary alternate scaling solutions like thunder and lightning.  

[Quickseller]

According to Jihan Wu, who controls Antpool (25% of global hashrate), there won't be any live segwit without a HF blocksize increase for 2017 activation.

So we get both! (or neither) Cool!

[img ]https://i.imgur.com/S89dQkA.png[/img]

This is very good, and is very important that he holds his ground. Bitcoin is in desperate need of a max block size increase, and as long as the blockstream core devs hold a veto card for any HF, it will be difficult to get a max block size increase without withholding support for something that the blockstream core devs need.

Core team are increasing the blocksize, Segwit is that increase. They're increasing more than what the Antpool owner has demanded, so what his issue is, I'm not sure tbh. Let's not all forget that Antpool might have ~7% hashrate today, but tomorrow is another story. Even next Tuesday is a bit uncertain

I am not quite sure what you are talking about. Anypool asked for an increase of the max block size to 2 MB as part of the HK roundtable, and I believe they have supported larger increases in the max block size in the past. Also Antpool's share of the network hashrate is closer to 17% and a substantial portion of that 17% is from cloud miners that they are hosing for their customers that cannot be moved from Antpool.

Also segwit is unlikely to achieve an effective increase up to anywhere near the 1.8MB that is being promised because such increase will require people to actively update their wallet to something that uses segwit.

Blockstream does not "basically represent core". That is a common misunderstanding spread by r/btc FUDers.

I disagree with this. Blockstream employs many core devs, and what the core devs have been proposing for a long time now have aligned with exactly with what will most financially benefit blockstream. I would say that it would probably be more accurate to say that core represents blockstream though.

The Hong Kong agreement explicitly states that the hard fork code would be ready within 3 months of Segwit's release, something that has not happened yet. The miners agreed that they would run Segwit in production in the meantime. IT DOES NOT SAY THAT BOTH A HARD FORK AND SEGWIT WOULD BE DELIVERED AT THE SAME TIME.

Again this is backwards. The HK agreement said that the miners will agree to run SegWit in production once there is a HF merged into core that increases the maximum block size up to 2MB. I also don't think that the miners will continue to run run/support SegWit (with the empathizes on support) if a HF that increases the max block size does not activate.

Very good news, Core dev keep making impressive upgrades to BTC. Many good news and a great time to buy before we go to the next uprise.

Are you being serious or joking? The core developers have done everything but run Bitcoin directly into the ground.

Are you being serious or joking? The core developers have done everything they can to keep Bitcoin from running directly into the ground. They are constantly trying to improve Bitcoin and think of new ways to improve Bitcoin.

I disagree with this in principle. The blockstream core devs are introducing additional features into Bitcoin that are increasingly complex, and have plans for additional features that are substantially more complex. As we saw with the DAO debacle, when you have very complex code, the room for error is very large, and there was literally millions of dollars that were literally sitting around for the taking for months before anyone exploited the problems in the ETH code.

[franky1]

lets pretend for one minute that luke JR was not representing blockstream.
lets pretend for one minute that luke JR was not representing core.
lets for one minute forget that he was sitting right next to adam back.
lets for one minute forget that he was funded by adam back.

lets also forget that it wasnt some random street hustler invited to the round table, but someone who should be there because they contribute to bitcoin.
lets also forget that it wasnt some vacation,

but instead lets just treat Luke JR as a sole independant human being who signed a document to say he would add a hard fork to the next release.. and signed his personal reputation in favour of doing it.

and simply ask.. without debating core or blockstream
has luke jr wrote any code that integrates a hardfork along with segwit..

the answer is no..
and so the round table agreement is useless and it seems "coders" are ignoring miners desires.
and so the round table might aswell have just been called a "paid vacation" where the agreement has no relevance to a roadmap, but just some bureacratic piece of paper so they can declare their costs as business costs to make their vacation cheap/free, (for tax write-off purposes)

lets not get too stuck on what "title" luke Jr announced or denounced himself as. But instead get stuck with this simple fact, there simply is no code.. which speaks louder than anything else

[Jet Cash]

That's good news about SegWit. It's just in time to be adopted by the new independent Britain.

I still feel that a reduced block interval is more important than an increased blocksize though.

[gmaxwell]

Blockstream was created by several of the most active Bitcoin core developers. It represents over 10 Bitcoin core developers who provide together most commits to Bitcoin core.

this is a load of bullshit, sure we do a lot-- but mostly in contrast to the general failure of most of the Bitcoin industry to support infrastructure development. I'm not aware of any way of counting that concludes anything close to "most". There are a good hundred contributors to core, and a great many very active ones which aren't at blockstream.

Anyone talking about blocking segwit for some hardfork is would be proving the big stinking lie of any claim that they were concerned with capacity. Core can't and isn't going to respond to threatening behavior. Fortunately, that isn't really the situation here-- except in the fevered minds of the /r/btc fudsters. I'm not concerned about activation having any deployment issues. (And if is delayed by some miners, that an issue the community can take up with them. I don't consider the segwit deployment urgent.)

The HK agreement between miners and blockstream (basically Core) represents consensus.

Blockstream has no such agreement, and it wouldn't matter if it did. (And, in fact, any effort to push such a thing would be an immediate actionable violation of my employment agreement; and trigger a parachute clause)

introducing additional features into Bitcoin that are increasingly complex

What do you think is increasingly complex? I think segwit makes Bitcoin simpler and safer. (though because the old things are still supported you can say there is some increase, but it seems pretty modest considering the simplicity it brings to people who are only using segwit and the number of problems it solves)

[franky1]

If miners think they can threaten the users of Bitcoin into taking rule rewrites of the system they are risking finding themselves stilling on a pile of worthless hardware. But I think that is incredibly unlikely.

if core think they can threaten users of bitcoin into taking segwit which rewrites the rules of the system, purely because they think hardforks are bad.. then atleast dont  threaten miners with... wait for it... a hard fork!!
(even you must laugh about the hypocracy)

if you think that an algorithm change (hardfork!!!!!!) is "safe" then atleast admit hardforks are possible.

its like saying you are against people owning guns, but then threatening to shoot anyone who wants a gun
its like saying you are against eating meat, but then threatening to bite off and swallowing someones ear or finger should you see they like meat
its like saying you are against immigration, but then threaten to move to another country to live in their house just to make them feel invaded

first it was bribery with the "fee discount" now its blackmail with the mining algorithm hardfork.

can you atleast see how you lot are not only hypocritical, but believe you deserve to "own" bitcoin as a sole trademark of blockstream

i get the feeling that if segwit does not succeed in a certain time frame.. blockstream wont get any round two funding or second stage released funds.
because the sidechains and other stuff that would earn their investors returns wont happen.
and its crap like this that makes bitcoin become incorporated. because decisions are based purely on corporate contracts, not community needs

[AliceGored]

Blockstream was created by several of the most active Bitcoin core developers. It represents over 10 Bitcoin core developers who provide together most commits to Bitcoin core.

this is a load of bullshit, sure we do a lot-- but mostly in contrast to the general failure of most of the Bitcoin industry to support infrastructure development. I'm not aware of any way of counting that concludes anything close to "most". There are a good hundred contributors to core, and a great many very active ones which aren't at blockstream.

Anyone talking about blocking segwit for some hardfork is would be proving the big stinking lie of any claim that they were concerned with capacity. Core can't and isn't going to respond to threatening behavior. Fortunately, that isn't really the situation here-- except in the fevered minds of the /r/btc fudsters. I'm not concerned about activation having any deployment issues. (And if is delayed by some miners, that an issue the community can take up with them. I don't consider the segwit deployment urgent.)

The HK agreement between miners and blockstream (basically Core) represents consensus.

Blockstream has no such agreement, and it wouldn't matter if it did. (And, in fact, any effort to push such a thing would be an immediate actionable violation of my employment agreement.

introducing additional features into Bitcoin that are increasingly complex

What do you think is increasingly complex? I think segwit makes Bitcoin simpler and safer. (though because the old things are still supported you can say there is some increase, but it seems pretty modest considering the simplicity it brings to people who are only using segwit and the number of problems it solves)

You heard it here first Jihan.

The HK agreement was a farce, and you were the mark.

[gmaxwell]

first it was bribery with the "fee discount" now its blackmail with the mining algorithm hardfork.

Idiot. Miners are service providers for the Bitcoin network. They order transactions for the network node and are paid _handsomely_ for this service. If they start blocking transaction features in an attempt to demand control over the system they're going to get fired. This isn't anything that I would do, it's the natural and obvious response to coercive behavior from miners, no different than any other kind of censorship activity. Many people already call for POW changes due to heavy mining centralization, so far I've fought back against those calls to promote harmony and avoid disruption, but this would be a position that would be hard to stick to in this kind of hypothetical.

But it's all moot, because that isn't what things actually look like. I talk to a LOT of miners (and, of course, I'm a miner too) and I don't expect there to actually be any issue there.

[Carlton Banks]

NOTE TO WEARY TRAVELLERS: TROLL ALERT

thread is full of trolls spouting nonsense claims about the HK agreement and Segwit, all Circle^TM-jerking to back up each others trollish claims. Don't feed the trolls.

[Lauda]

The HK agreement between miners and blockstream (basically Core) represents consensus. It clearly says both 2 MB hardfork and Segwit to be delivered. Doing one but not the other one is actually stalling - not to mention breaking intentionally agreement is quick way to loose all credibility - not best day for Bitcoin if it really happens considering blockstream basically represents Core, the most used Bitcoin full node implementation today.

Wrong. The HK agreement was between the miners and the people who were representing themselves that they. It doesn't "clearly say" that you claim that it does. The people who had signed that agreement, "vouched" to deliver a HF proposal and code 3 months after Segwit release (there's still some time left). However, they can not force other Core members to agree or accept that proposal in any way. Blockstream does not represent Core. That is a bullshit statement.

The blockstream core devs are introducing additional features into Bitcoin that are increasingly complex, and have plans for additional features that are substantially more complex.

If these features are too complex for your comprehension skills, do not generalize the statement for others. Let's all blame Core for adding very useful features and all the soft forks that were deployed so far, shall we?  

You heard it here first Jihan.
The HK agreement was a farce, and you were the mark.

Maxwell has already voiced his disagreement with the agreement so this should be known by now. He's not the only one though (e.g. maaku).

thread is full of trolls spouting nonsense claims about the HK agreement and Segwit, all Circle^TM-jerking to back up each others trollish claims. Don't feed the trolls.

I was expecting them to ruin the wonderful news.

[AliceGored]

NOTE TO WEARY TRAVELLERS: TROLL ALERT

thread is full of trolls spouting nonsense claims about the HK agreement and Segwit, all Circle^TM-jerking to back up each others trollish claims. Don't feed the trolls.

Does it feel as dirty as it appears, Carlton?

[tobacco123]

Sorry for being naive... I understand Seg Wit will help bitcoin to scale... Just curious: Is bitcoin the first crypto-coin with Seg-Wit or has any other Alt-coin incorporated Seg Wit?

Pretty sure that it is the first. Segwit has been tested in multiple testnets though and in a completely separate Elements Sidechain.

Look like bitcoin is still the fore-runner in the blockchain technology. With such a strong team backing bitcoin, we are in good shape to face the challenges from mainstream adoption. I will update my Bitcoin-qt core tonight!

[gmaxwell]

The people who had signed that agreement, "vouched" to deliver a HF proposal

The antagonism and misrepresentations-- things like saying core agreed, that blockstream is core, that people were planning on working on this _before_ segwit, that miners would refuse segwit (a capacity increase) unless there were some hardfork, etc-- along with F2Pool not upholding their end seem to have really demoralized most of the people involved there, and cause some loss of face in the technical community for them. They were working on some designs but I think the threats caused them to depriortize that effort. (Consider, if they post a proposal and it arms more threatening behavior, they'll take some blame for facilitating that-- and that is a situation which would be bad for the value of their Bitcoin holdings as well as their professional reputations) In effect, this work is currently pre-undermined because a large body of people won't touch it with a ten foot poll because it's tied up with intolerable behavior, and that makes it a lot less interesting to work on.

Really the biggest lesson from the earlier chapters of this debacle is that you can't convince principled people in the community with threats. Probably the worst thing that could have been done in this blocksize nonsense was running to the mass media with "Bitcoin is forking!" before even writing a BIP... The whole value prop of Bitcoin depends on Bitcoin being resistant to political coercion. Convincing people that we all have a common shared interest to cooperatively move in particular directions that benefit everyone is a strategy that works (which is why segwit itself has such broad support, that even most people that prefer other things admit that its a really good move). That works because it is a way to encourage change that, if it works, doesn't come with without too much risk of adverse change in the future.  If threats and antagonism or PR campaigns based on ignorance (Make Bitcoin Great Again!) are shown to be a successful way to enact change (even otherwise good changes), then they could be abused in the future to make bad changes (such as transaction censorship or undermining the systems' monetary policy) and that cannot be allowed to happen if Bitcoin is to remain valuable: If someone could credibly argue that in the past changes were pushed through via threatening actions by a small set of high hash-power miners this would be powerful FUD that would erode the value proposition. I think a lot of people (including a lot of big miners) are committed to avoiding that outcome.

[btcxyzzz]

Blockstream does not "basically represent core". That is a common misunderstanding spread by r/btc FUDers.

How so? By comparison of these two pages: https://bitcoincore.org/en/team/ and https://www.blockstream.com/team/ I found that 4 people work for both companies. That's dangerously high and implicating number. And that's what's shown, I believe there are more to know about happening behind the curtains.

Also, do you know about this: https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/47zfzt/blockstream_is_now_controlled_by_the_bilderberg/     That's THE most important thing you should all know about Bitcoin, in political sense.

[achow101]

Blockstream does not "basically represent core". That is a common misunderstanding spread by r/btc FUDers.

How so? By comparison of these two pages: https://bitcoincore.org/en/team/ and https://www.blockstream.com/team/ I found that 4 people work for both companies. That's dangerously high and implicating number. And that's what's shown, I believe there are more to know about happening behind the curtains.

Also, do you know about this: https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/47zfzt/blockstream_is_now_controlled_by_the_bilderberg/     That's THE most important thing you should all know about Bitcoin, in political sense.

That is four people out of 17 primary contributors, not to mention that there are hundreds of other people who occasionally contribute. However, only one of those 4 has commit access, and none of those 4 are project maintainers. Since those 4 are not part of the project leadership (not maintainers), they cannot be considered to "basically represent core", they can't decide the direction that Core goes in and they can't force any changes to Core that other contributors are against.

[Quickseller]

introducing additional features into Bitcoin that are increasingly complex

What do you think is increasingly complex? I think segwit makes Bitcoin simpler and safer. (though because the old things are still supported you can say there is some increase, but it seems pretty modest considering the simplicity it brings to people who are only using segwit and the number of problems it solves)

SegWit stores/broadcasts signature data separately from transaction data. Prior to SegWit, all of this was stored together, and I see this as two things that can potentially go wrong verses one thing that could potentially go wrong. If someone who is not using SegWit sends a transaction then the signature data will be stored along with the transaction data, adding to where fully validating nodes need to check when checking if a transaction (and block) is valid or not.

I also believe that many (maybe all) of the BIPs that have been implemented in the last medium term were implemented in order to allow for LN to be possible, including SegWit. (Yes some of the BIPs do solve other issues and are overall beneficial to Bitcoin). Based on my understanding of LN (from reading the white paper), I believe LN to be horribly complex because of the number of transactions that need to be signed in a very specific order by each party whenever one party sends BTC to another party via LN. I believe this complexity will result in wallets like electrum, multibit and armory to have bugs in them that go undetected that can result in the loss of funds by users.

[Carlton Banks]

introducing additional features into Bitcoin that are increasingly complex

What do you think is increasingly complex? I think segwit makes Bitcoin simpler and safer. (though because the old things are still supported you can say there is some increase, but it seems pretty modest considering the simplicity it brings to people who are only using segwit and the number of problems it solves)

SegWit stores/broadcasts signature data separately from transaction data. Prior to SegWit, all of this was stored together, and I see this as two things that can potentially go wrong verses one thing that could potentially go wrong. If someone who is not using SegWit sends a transaction then the signature data will be stored along with the transaction data, adding to where fully validating nodes need to check when checking if a transaction (and block) is valid or not.

I also believe that many (maybe all) of the BIPs that have been implemented in the last medium term were implemented in order to allow for LN to be possible, including SegWit. (Yes some of the BIPs do solve other issues and are overall beneficial to Bitcoin). Based on my understanding of LN (from reading the white paper), I believe LN to be horribly complex because of the number of transactions that need to be signed in a very specific order by each party whenever one party sends BTC to another party via LN. I believe this complexity will result in wallets like electrum, multibit and armory to have bugs in them that go undetected that can result in the loss of funds by users.

Are you some kind of clairvoyant? You appear to be having troubling "visions" about Segwit/LN, based on your perceived complexity of these solutions, informed by your feelings.


If complexity were an issue in it's own right, Bitcoin 0.1 would never have got off the ground, the system has been complex from the start, and it needed to be to solve the problem Satoshi set out to solve.


You're trying to talk to a world-expert on Bitcoin about the way these changes affect your emotions. Don't be surprised if no-one cares.

[tspacepilot]

Are you some kind of clairvoyant? You appear to be having troubling "visions" about Segwit/LN, based on your perceived complexity of these solutions, informed by your feelings.

If complexity were an issue in it's own right, Bitcoin 0.1 would never have got off the ground, the system has been complex from the start, and it needed to be to solve the problem Satoshi set out to solve.

You're trying to talk to a world-expert on Bitcoin about the way these changes affect your emotions. Don't be surprised if no-one cares.

It's his MO.  He uses this kinda prose to push people around all the time in the escrow and loan world of this forum.  It's kinda funny to see him try this shit in a technical discussion though.  Cute.

[yayayo]

This is great news! With segregated witness and lightning networks, Bitcoin will be well prepared to meet future increases in adoption. Core team did an outstanding job and found intelligent solutions for scaling Bitcoin and at the same time increasing network security and efficiency.

The big-blocks-at-all-costs FUD-campaigners have been proven wrong with their doomsday predictions of the Bitcoin network failing after approaching full block capacity. After Segwit and LN are operational, these people will look even more ridiculous with their constant alarmist campaigning against Core.

It's highly encouraging that Core developers persisted in implementing a sustainable and decentralized solution despite the imputations and lies thrown at them by the proponents of a Bitcoin exposed to governmental control.

ya.ya.yo!

[hv_]

This is great news! With segregated witness and lightning networks, Bitcoin will be well prepared to meet future increases in adoption. Core team did an outstanding job and found intelligent solutions for scaling Bitcoin and at the same time increasing network security and efficiency.

The big-blocks-at-all-costs FUD-campaigners have been proven wrong with their doomsday predictions of the Bitcoin network failing after approaching full block capacity. After Segwit and LN are operational, these people will look even more ridiculous with their constant alarmist campaigning against Core.

It's highly encouraging that Core developers persisted in implementing a sustainable and decentralized solution despite the imputations and lies thrown at them by the proponents of a Bitcoin exposed to governmental control.

ya.ya.yo!

Hoping all the best.