It is a visitor publish by Jason Hughes, VP of Growth and Engineering at Ocean Mining. Opinions expressed are solely his personal and don’t essentially mirror these of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Journal. The article initially appeared on X.com and has been printed with the permission of the creator.
Let me begin off by saying I’m not professional BIP110, and I’m not anti-BIP110. If it really succeeds as one thing that positive factors true consensus inside the community and finally ends up being enforced by a majority of the community… cool. If that’s the case, then we’ll go together with it as a result of the community has spoken and accepted it, and all nodes, together with non-BIP110 nodes, might be pulled alongside for the journey. Sadly for proponents of the proposal, that merely isn’t at the moment the case by any measurable metric, nor does it seem to have a trajectory suggesting that can change, both.
There’s been plenty of deceptive details about this entire factor, particularly within the context of mining. A number of fast key bullet factors to briefly counter some hyperbole from proponents: BIP110 is NOT inevitable. It CAN fail. BIP110 can and can trigger a series break up/fork in a minority hashrate scenario. BIP110 is NOT with out threat to miners selecting to undertake it. Miners not supporting BIP110 should not all of the sudden mining “invalid” blocks simply because a proposal that isn’t but adopted merely exists. You’re not a nasty individual or evil merely since you don’t like or assist BIP110. (The truth that I really feel the necessity to level out that final half is definitely sort of unhappy…)
I used to be going to jot down an extended publish to assist maintain miners knowledgeable about issues they should stay conscious of as this all performs out… earlier than realizing I already did so months in the past, as a doc I authored that I had hoped might be put out as a miner schooling piece at OCEAN. Sadly, it by no means bought printed. So I went forward and up to date it, and nicely, right here it’s.
Once more, have in mind this was written months in the past, meant to be as agnostic as potential in an effort to make it acceptable as a company publish. That effort failed, so I’m posting it as a private doc as we speak as an alternative. As a miner making essential choices about your operations, you want to concentrate on all of this with out the sugarcoating and, frankly, outright deceptive info coming from a few of the BIP110 proponents. You should be vigilant and resolve what’s best for you.
Whereas there may be actually some deceptive info from the opposition as nicely, nothing I’ve seen is almost as egregious because the extraordinarily untimely claims of victory and accompanying hyperbole pushed by the BIP110 aspect. Summarizing my doc a bit, my private suggestion to miners is that this: Sign in the event you assist BIP110. Don’t sign in the event you don’t assist BIP110 or don’t care. Both approach, monitor the community on/round/earlier than block 961632.
Should you proceed to see non-signaling blocks from main swimming pools, you could be moderately sure they’re not going to all of the sudden resolve later to throw away thousands and thousands of {dollars}’ value of income to backtrack and sign for BIP110. In the event that they do, by some likelihood, begin to sign for BIP110, it is best to monitor that and contemplate switching as required to remain on the heaviest chain. The important thing level is that, realistically, just one aspect can win. It’s both BIP110 succeeds, and miners not on the BIP110 aspect fail, or BIP110 fails, and miners on the non-BIP110 aspect succeed.
Transferring on, let’s dive right into a small fraction of my rationale.
QUICK FACT: Between 7 and 15% of Bitcoin Nodes are signaling assist for BIP110.
Relying on which centralized crawler you take a look at… no solution to know for positive [how many BIP110 nodes are signaling support]. My private non-public crawler places this quantity a lot decrease, however that’s a dialogue for one more day. Suffice it to say, I feel it’s logical and proper to say that even 15% just isn’t a majority.
“However Jason! UASF bought Segwit activated with fewer nodes!”
Yep, as a result of many miners, retailers, customers, and so on., all really wished Segwit. There was super financial and neighborhood weight behind it. With out rehashing that entire factor, as loads of assets on the subject from earlier than BIP110 are value a learn, suffice it to say that BIP110 and Segwit activations should not fairly comparable, as many have already identified. Segwit, for instance, went into its UASF territory with round 1/third of the community’s hashrate already signaling assist. With that sort of backing, the UASF to assist push the MASF over the tipping level made plenty of sense. It doesn’t make sense right here for BIP110.
QUICK FACT: 0.6% of blocks over the previous 60 days have signaled assist for BIP110.
[0.6% is a] fairly stark distinction to even Segwit’s low baseline assist. Sure, I do know it’s elevated barely prior to now couple of weeks, however no new entrants. Simply extra clearly rented hashrate from one of many identical small proponents.
One thing to bear in mind is that mining BIP110 signaling blocks through DATUM on OCEAN carries nearly no threat to the miner up till the fork level at block 961632. The associated fee is negligible, as you’re successfully assured to recoup rental prices, and so on.
It’s superior that the flexibility to take action exists, and I wouldn’t have it another approach… however simply one thing to bear in mind when weighing signaling from such blocks within the grand scheme of issues from a risk-reward, money-on-the-table perspective.
“However Jason! Miners don’t have any incentive to sign till the final minute!”
I additionally see no proof to counsel that this might be the case. Subjectively, I disagree with the premise, because it’s not in a mining pool’s greatest curiosity to destabilize the community in such a approach. A part of the rationale for early signaling and lock-in intervals is to assist coordinate upgrades in a easy style. Ready till the final minute negates that profit solely. I see no compelling rationale or upside to doing so.
Persevering with on this, as a part of my private node monitoring setup, I particularly monitor nodes recognized to belong to varied entities, corresponding to different mining swimming pools, exchanges, massive lightning nodes, retailers, and so on. A supermajority of that are monitored with express permission and affirmation/coordination.
QUICK FACT: All main mining swimming pools I monitor are at the moment operating some variant of Bitcoin Core v30 or v31 (besides OCEAN).
Increasing on that, most [mining pools] have up to date their nodes because the proliferation of BIP110’s launch, even because the launch of Knots 29.3. Moreover, it’s recognized that many mining swimming pools run modified variations of their node software program to facilitate numerous necessities of their particular infrastructure. Such adjustments would should be ported to a BIP110-compatible shopper, examined, evaluated, and deployed forward of time. I at the moment see no proof that that is the case at the moment.
So far as I can inform, the swimming pools are conscious however ignoring.
“However Jason! Miners don’t decide consensus! Nodes do! In any other case, they’ll simply cancel halvings!”
This is likely one of the funniest and most ridiculous arguments I’ve heard from the pro-BIP110 crowd. Evaluating a consensus change that may be unilaterally enforced upon the community by miners and accepted by 100% of current nodes (a smooth fork), with a tough fork which no current node will settle for… is disingenuous at greatest. T
ightening guidelines (like BIP110): Gentle fork, could be enforced by miners in the event that they select to take action. Loosening guidelines (like canceling a halving): Arduous fork, cannot be enforced by miners with out successfully 100% buy-in from the complete community… which isn’t more likely to occur. Evaluating the 2 is, bluntly, simply silly.
“However Jason! Should you don’t improve to the most recent consensus guidelines, you’re insecure! You’ll lose funds! You’ll mine invalid blocks! You’ll [insert additional hyperbole here]!”
This could be true of a consensus change that has, nicely, consensus. Whereas BIP110 has made a valiant effort to achieve that consensus, it has but to have any measurable majority at what’s now arguably the eleventh hour. Not in nodes, not in hashrate, not within the social layers (consensus.well being has a cool visible there the place you’ll discover me within the center).
If one way or the other BIP110 positive factors 51%+ of the community hashrate on/earlier than block 961632… then, alright. It’s enforced, since as a smooth fork a majority of miners can unilaterally implement it within the absence of a completely adopted URSF (successfully a misnomer, as this may sort of be a tough fork).
“However Jason! It might’t achieve consensus by already having consensus! It’s important to give it an opportunity!”
Firstly… no I don’t, regardless that I’ve. Second, it’s a rushed proposal that by no means had the time to even try to achieve actual consensus. It’s been 7 months because the launch of the primary BIP110 shopper. There’s ~3 weeks to go earlier than “obligatory” signaling begins as of now (much less by the point you learn this). 90% of the time obtainable has handed with no change in general sentiment from any related gamers. If it hasn’t gained enough adoption prior to now 7 months, it’s unlikely to take action within the subsequent 3 weeks.
“However Jason! CSAM! CSAM! Pedophiles! CSAM!”
I’ll be the primary to say, even I personally overstated the chance right here early on when Core proposed its OP_RETURN change. I personally anticipated one thing significantly egregious to hit the chain virtually instantly, and to the most effective of my information, that’s not but occurred. May it nonetheless occur? Yeah, I suppose.
However contemplating from a technical perspective, byte-for-byte the identical contiguous arbitrary knowledge can provably find yourself saved within the present chain or the BIP-110 chain with out a lot problem… this specific argument for BIP-110 falls fairly flat to me at this level.
Do I would like CSAM within the chain? In fact not. Am I a pedophile if I don’t assist BIP110? Additionally not.
Concluding Ideas
I may proceed to go on and on and on, however I’ll cease right here. I’ve wasted sufficient time on this. I’m positive I’ve accomplished lots to harass each side of the BIP110 debate at this level, as I don’t undertake both stance. I’m positive I’ll catch flak from all angles merely for daring to talk my thoughts on it.
Total, I principally suppose it was foolish to strategy addressing an actual drawback (the OP_RETURN default change in Bitcoin Core) with the utmost anti-spam manifesto primarily based smooth fork proposal… which provably can’t cease spam, arbitrary knowledge, and so on. 🤦♂️ (Sure, I do know, proponents will declare it’s not about spam… and also will make semantic arguments that it does cease knowledge as nicely… neither of which seems to be right.)
I’ll shut with the concession that I might be unsuitable. I’m not Nostradamus, and I can’t precisely predict the end result with 100% certainty. I can solely go by what the information tells me, and so I give BIP110’s success lower than a 5% likelihood of truly succeeding… and I contemplate that beneficiant. You may take my opinions on this nevertheless you would like, however I extremely advocate you don’t low cost the precise knowledge factors, stay vigilant, and do what’s greatest for you and your mining income. Don’t be gaslit by both aspect of the talk, and make your individual choices.
Right here’s a hyperlink to the identical doc linked above for ease of entry.