[2017-10-16] Bitcoin SegWit2x Hard Fork Benefits Not Visible: Bruce Fenton

[nickbelski]

Bitcoin Foundation executive director Bruce Fenton has become the latest high-profile Bitcoin personality to criticize SegWit2x.

In comments on Twitter Sunday, Fenton triggered responses from other well-known Bitcoin industry and community figures after he wrote that he “didn’t see the benefit” of the hard fork.

“What's the end goal? Switching dev teams alone?” he asked. “What makes it worth it? ROI?”

SegWit2x’s imminent activation has led to increasingly hostile rhetoric from supporters of Bitcoin Core, who frequently suggest the fork is an attempt to unseat its developers as a “hostile takeover.”

Fenton stopped short of stating outright SegWit2x would be hostile to Bitcoin, instead appearing to reinforce the futility of the operation.

“If the goal is to simply to honor agreements then people shouldn't have made those agreements to begin with,” he added in a further tweet.

Reacting, others could not agree on whether the goal of November’s fork was to switch development teams.

“I don't think goal is to switch, but to coerce Core to adopt block size increase,” BitGo engineer Jameson Lopp wrote, while entrepreneur Tuur Demeester conversely stated his opinion to the contrary.

Despite the supposed threat posed to Bitcoin network stability, prices have increased in the run-up to the fork’s November 18 deadline.

Meanwhile, the fifth hard fork of Ethereum occurred problem-free over the weekend, with prices rising towards $350.

https://cointelegraph.com/news/bitcoin-segwit2x-hard-fork-benefits-not-visible-bruce-fenton

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[Variogam]

2x more possible Bitcoin users is worth it. The SegWit capacity increase of about 3% (~1.03 MB) after two months is not impressive, making the 2x upgrade a no brainer.

[d5000]

I don't think the supporters of the Segwit2x fork - if it is successful and the "2x chain" becomes "the Bitcoin" - would have any chance to keep Core/Small blocker developers out.

The goal of this fork was clearly to find a compromise to 1) activate Segwit despite blocking by "big block"-supporting miners and 2) increase the block size in a moderate way. This was the way it was communicated, and it is the only reason why 80-90% of the miners and some big "Bitcoin economy" players accepted it.

After the 2MB increase is done, the discussion about future development would start on "point Zero" again. It is not necessarily the case that then "Bitmain took over".

For example, if after the fork (being Segwit2x "the Bitcoin") Bitmain and other "big block" supporters tried to install an agenda of regular hard forks that doubled the capacity every 2 years or so, then every "small blocker" that grudgingly accepted the 2MB fork or even signed the NYA because of its "moderateness" would oppose that. There are many miners and also companies that have more sympathy for the "small block" stance or that view a block size of more than 6-8MB (the "real" limit after Segwit2x) as dangerous. They would then use an alternative implementation, not BTC1 - even the "UASF" concept could have a come-back then.

So it would not be easy at all to sign a second NYA with similar support for a "hardfork every 2 years" policy.

(PS: Personally, I believe the Segwit2x chain has about 15-30% chance to become "the Bitcoin" in the long term, so very likely what I am describing here would not happen.)