[2017-05-24]56 Bitcoin Companies Approve Segwit-2Mb Combined Fork Plan

[nanayueky]

Barry Silbert’s firm the Digital Currency Group (DCG) revealed a scaling agreement on May 23 with a letter of intent backed by 56 Bitcoin companies, for Sergio Demian Lerner’s recent Segwit-2Mb plan. The announcement states the signed agreement represents a “critical mass of the bitcoin ecosystem” with 83.28% of hash power supporting the proposal.
The Anticipated ‘Barry Silbert Scaling Proposal’ Has Been Revealed

For a few days bitcoin enthusiasts have been anticipating the56 Bitcoin Companies Approve Segwit-2Mb Combined Fork Plan “Barry Silbert” scaling plan  hinted at a few days ago. Following Silbert’s statements about a new scaling effort, a meeting took place in connetion to the Consensus 2017 conference. As the conference came to an end, Silbert’s venture capital firm DCG revealed the compromise proposal.

The agreement is supported by 56 digital currency companies stemming from 21 countries worldwide. The letter states the agreement has the backing of over 83 percent of the network’s hash power. This group represents 5.1 billion USD monthly on chain transaction volume and 20.5 million bitcoin wallets within the economy.

“We agree to immediately support the following parallel upgrades to the bitcoin protocol, which will be deployed simultaneously and based on the original Segwit-2Mb proposal,” explains the DCG announcement.  

Activate Segregated Witness at an 80% threshold, signaling at bit 4 and activate a 2 MB hard fork within six months.
A Proposal to Lower the Segwit Threshold to 80%

Prior to DCG’s announcement 56 Bitcoin Companies Approve Segwit-2Mb Combined Fork Plandiscussions of lowering the Segwit threshold that took place during the Consensus 2017 scaling panel, Eric Lombrozo stated it was possible to lower the Segwit threshold. After the discussion on May 22, Bitcoin developer James Hilliard proposed a “Reduced signaling threshold activation” BIP.

“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,’” explains Hilliard. “The goal here is to minimize chain split risk and network disruption while maximizing backward 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.
Companies/Individuals that Approved Consensus; The Future of Bitcoin

Some of the notable companies and people that agreed to this Segwit activation compromise include Decentral, Grayscale investments, Jaxx, Bitmain, Xapo, Yours, Bitpay, Gavin Andresen, Bitcoin.com and Guy Corem.

The medium article further suggested 56 Bitcoin Companies Approve Segwit-2Mb Combined Fork Planthe community is prepared to handle any growing pains as a cohesive whole that has proven technical compromises can be made in the most challenging and high-risk environments. The consensus article echoed this sentiment:

“We are also committed to the research and development of technical mechanisms to improve signaling in the bitcoin community, as well as to put in place communication tools, in order to more closely coordinate with ecosystem participants in the design, integration, and deployment of safe solutions that increase bitcoin capacity.”
https://news.bitcoin.com/new-york-bitcoin-miners-tentatively-agree-on-segwit-activation/

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[bbc.reporter]

The risk of a disputable and a possibility of a problematic hard fork that might become like Ethereum is not worth gaining the 2mb blocksize.

Who made Barry Silbert the authority of this new proposal?

[Carlton Banks]

The risk of a disputable and a possibility of a problematic hard fork that might become like Ethereum is not worth gaining the 2mb blocksize.

Who made Barry Silbert the authority of this new proposal?

+1

Barry's never contributed anything, except being Barry Silbert

8MB blocksize (and not 2MB as this is being misleadingly advertised as) is a very big move for 2017. With Bitcoin nodes on the Bitcoin network still idling at 6,500 in number, and with no real change in that number for essentially 2 years, octupling the blocksize looks like a sure way to make that number go down, not up.

Segwit already has 4MB blocks, and it is the compromise that this suit-led coup claims to be. This proposal would set a dangerous precedent; power brokers deciding the parameters that the Bitcoin protocol follows, and not users or technical experts. Follow this fork at your peril, who knows what they will feel bold enough to force on the Bitcoin rules after accepting something as dangerous as Segwit 8MB (what this should be called, and what I'm calling it from now on)

[bbc.reporter]

@Carlton Bank. That proposal looks like a let's get rid of Core move by the people and businesses that are supporting it. This will be more problematic than Bitcoin Unlimited. At least Bitcoin Unlimited came from the grassroots. This Barry proposal is making bitcoin into a corporate coin taking it away from its cypherpunk roots.

[Carlton Banks]

BBC reporter, I disagree with your analysis.

Firstly, Bitcoin Unlimited displayed little evidence of being grass roots (i.e. user) supported at all. There were alot of frequent (and vocal) BU proponents talking anonymously both here and on reddit, but real world proponents, even in the corporate world of Bitcoin, were few and far between.

Secondly, grass roots, user-led movements are those which hold the real balance of power in Bitcoin, it is that model of power distribution (i.e. the decentralised network of Bitcoin software nodes) that even makes Bitcoin such a brilliant concept to begin with, the Bittorrent of money, if you will.

And so, the suits have very little clout (power) to force their will on this situation, Satoshi deliberately designed Bitcoin such that powerful outsiders (or insiders for that matter) would find it very difficult to acquire enough power to change Bitcoin at will.

All that can be done is to convince Bitcoin users that any changes proposed make sense for them (and the value of their BTC). Anything that seems in any way contrary to that is not going to see alot of support on the Bitcoin network, and that is reflected in the low popularity of Bitcoin XT, Bitcoin Classic and Bitcoin Unlimited (all supported by the suits and corporations, all of which failed).

Segwit 8MB (i.e. 2MB base + the 6MB need for Segwit) as proposed by Silbert and DCG is too much when Bitcoin nodes have rested at about 6500 for so long now. We really need something to boost that number, and even the Segwit 4MB proposal from Bitcoin Core developers may harm (and can do nothing to help) the number of Bitcoin nodes on the Bitcoin network. Maybe Lightning Network rollout will help improve the Bitcoin node count, it should in theory.

I put so much emphasis on the number of Bitcoin network nodes because that metric is most vital to Bitcoin's dollar value, as that is what allows Bitcoin to survive as peer-2-peer digital gold. The decentralised network is the fundamental essence of what makes Bitcoin what it is, and why it's becoming so valuable on the exchanges in 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014 & 2017 (and more to come...). All Bitcoiners really need to understand why this is so, as the value of your BTC is backed, not by government, law, gold or silver, it is backed by your fellow humans forming an unbreakable chain of cryptographic trust. It's called the Bitcoin network, join today.