It is a visitor submit by Jason Hughes, VP of Growth and Engineering at Ocean Mining. Opinions expressed are solely his personal and don’t essentially replicate 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 truly succeeds as one thing that positive factors true consensus throughout the community and finally ends up being enforced by a majority of the community… cool. If that’s the case, then we’ll go along 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 present the case by any measurable metric, nor does it seem to have a trajectory suggesting that can change, both.
There’s been lots of deceptive details about this complete factor, particularly within the context of mining. A couple 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 sequence cut up/fork in a minority hashrate scenario. BIP110 is NOT with out danger to miners selecting to undertake it. Miners not supporting BIP110 should not instantly mining “invalid” blocks simply because a proposal that isn’t but adopted merely exists. You’re not a foul particular person 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 type of unhappy…)
I used to be going to write down an extended submit to assist preserve 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 may very well be put out as a miner training piece at OCEAN. Sadly, it by no means received printed. So I went forward and up to date it, and effectively, right here it’s.
Once more, be mindful this was written months in the past, supposed to be as agnostic as doable in an effort to make it acceptable as a company submit. That effort failed, so I’m posting it as a private doc in the present day as an alternative. As a miner making essential selections about your operations, you want to concentrate on all of this with out the sugarcoating and, frankly, outright deceptive data coming from a number of the BIP110 proponents. You should be vigilant and resolve what’s best for you.
Whereas there may be definitely some deceptive data from the opposition as effectively, 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 for those who assist BIP110. Don’t sign for those who don’t assist BIP110 or don’t care. Both method, monitor the community on/round/earlier than block 961632.
If you happen to proceed to see non-signaling blocks from main swimming pools, you might be fairly sure they’re not going to instantly resolve later to throw away thousands and thousands of {dollars}’ price of income to backtrack and sign for BIP110. In the event that they do, by some likelihood, begin to sign for BIP110, you need to monitor that and think about 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.
Shifting 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 technique to know for certain [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% shouldn’t be a majority.
“However Jason! UASF received Segwit activated with fewer nodes!”
Yep, as a result of many miners, retailers, customers, and so on., all truly wished Segwit. There was super financial and group weight behind it. With out rehashing that complete factor, as loads of assets on the subject from earlier than BIP110 are price 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 type of backing, the UASF to assist push the MASF over the tipping level made lots 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 previously couple of weeks, however no new entrants. Simply extra clearly rented hashrate from one of many similar small proponents.
One thing to bear in mind is that mining BIP110 signaling blocks by way of DATUM on OCEAN carries just about no danger to the miner up till the fork level at block 961632. The price 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 every other method… 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 haven’t any incentive to sign till the final minute!”
I additionally see no proof to recommend that this may very well be the case. Subjectively, I disagree with the premise, because it’s not in a mining pool’s finest curiosity to destabilize the community in such a method. 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, equivalent to different mining swimming pools, exchanges, giant 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 present working 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 varied necessities of their particular infrastructure. Such modifications would have to be ported to a BIP110-compatible shopper, examined, evaluated, and deployed forward of time. I at present see no proof that that is the case at present.
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 without doubt 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 present nodes (a tender fork), with a tough fork which no present node will settle for… is disingenuous at finest. T
ightening guidelines (like BIP110): Delicate fork, might be enforced by miners in the event that they select to take action. Loosening guidelines (like canceling a halving): Exhausting fork, can’t be enforced by miners with out successfully 100% buy-in from the whole community… which isn’t more likely to occur. Evaluating the 2 is, bluntly, simply silly.
“However Jason! If you happen to don’t improve to the newest consensus guidelines, you’re insecure! You’ll lose funds! You’ll mine invalid blocks! You’ll [insert additional hyperbole here]!”
This might be true of a consensus change that has, effectively, 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 in some way BIP110 positive factors 51%+ of the community hashrate on/earlier than block 961632… then, alright. It’s enforced, since as a tender fork a majority of miners can unilaterally implement it within the absence of a totally adopted URSF (successfully a misnomer, as this is able to type of be a tough fork).
“However Jason! It may’t acquire 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 attempt to acquire actual consensus. It’s been 7 months because the launch of the primary BIP110 shopper. There’s ~3 weeks to go earlier than “necessary” signaling begins as of now (much less by the point you learn this). 90% of the time out there has handed with no change in total sentiment from any related gamers. If it hasn’t gained enough adoption previously 7 months, it’s not going 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 danger 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 data, 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 information can provably find yourself saved within the present chain or the BIP-110 chain with out a lot difficulty… this explicit 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 might proceed to go on and on and on, however I’ll cease right here. I’ve wasted sufficient time on this. I’m certain I’ve completed loads to harass each side of the BIP110 debate at this level, as I don’t undertake both stance. I’m certain I’ll catch flak from all angles merely for daring to talk my thoughts on it.
General, I principally suppose it was foolish to method addressing an actual downside (the OP_RETURN default change in Bitcoin Core) with the utmost anti-spam manifesto primarily based tender fork proposal… which provably can’t cease spam, arbitrary information, 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 information as effectively… neither of which seems to be right.)
I’ll shut with the concession that I may very well be flawed. I’m not Nostradamus, and I can’t precisely predict the result with 100% certainty. I can solely go by what the info tells me, and so I give BIP110’s success lower than a 5% likelihood of truly succeeding… and I think about that beneficiant. You possibly can take my opinions on this nonetheless you would like, however I extremely advocate you don’t low cost the precise information factors, stay vigilant, and do what’s finest for you and your mining income. Don’t be gaslit by both aspect of the controversy, and make your personal selections.
Right here’s a hyperlink to the identical doc linked above for ease of entry.
