This can be a visitor put up by Jason Hughes, VP of Improvement and Engineering at Ocean Mining. Opinions expressed are totally his personal and don’t essentially mirror these of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Journal. The article initially appeared on X.com and has been revealed 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 aspects true consensus inside the community and finally ends up being enforced by a majority of the community… cool. In that 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, will likely be pulled alongside for the trip. Sadly for proponents of the proposal, that merely isn’t presently the case by any measurable metric, nor does it seem to have a trajectory suggesting that can change, both.
There’s been a variety of deceptive details about this complete 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 sequence 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 out of the blue 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 help 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 jot down a protracted put up 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 bought revealed. So I went forward and up to date it, and nicely, right here it’s.
Once more, remember this was written months in the past, meant to be as agnostic as potential in an effort to make it acceptable as a company put up. That effort failed, so I’m posting it as a private doc at present as an alternative. As a miner making vital selections about your operations, you want to pay attention to all of this with out the sugarcoating and, frankly, outright deceptive info coming from among 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 sort of as egregious because the extraordinarily untimely claims of victory and accompanying hyperbole pushed by the BIP110 facet. Summarizing my doc a bit, my private suggestion to miners is that this: Sign in case you help BIP110. Don’t sign in case you don’t help 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 will be moderately sure they’re not going to out of the blue resolve later to throw away tens of millions 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 facet can win. It’s both BIP110 succeeds, and miners not on the BIP110 facet fail, or BIP110 fails, and miners on the non-BIP110 facet 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 help for BIP110.
Relying on which centralized crawler you have a look at… no method 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% shouldn’t be a majority.
“However Jason! UASF bought Segwit activated with fewer nodes!”
Yep, as a result of many miners, retailers, customers, and so forth., all truly wished Segwit. There was large financial and neighborhood weight behind it. With out rehashing that complete factor, as loads of sources 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 help. With that type of backing, the UASF to assist push the MASF over the tipping level made a variety of sense. It doesn’t make sense right here for BIP110.
QUICK FACT: 0.6% of blocks over the previous 60 days have signaled help for BIP110.
[0.6% is a] fairly stark distinction to even Segwit’s low baseline help. Sure, I do know it’s elevated barely up 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 just about no threat 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 forth.
It’s superior that the power to take action exists, and I wouldn’t have it some 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 don’t have 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 durations is to assist coordinate upgrades in a easy style. Ready till the final minute negates that profit totally. 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 numerous entities, comparable to different mining swimming pools, exchanges, massive lightning nodes, retailers, and so forth. A supermajority of that are monitored with specific permission and affirmation/coordination.
QUICK FACT: All main mining swimming pools I monitor are presently 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 varied necessities of their particular infrastructure. Such adjustments would should be ported to a BIP110-compatible consumer, examined, evaluated, and deployed forward of time. I presently see no proof that that is the case presently.
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 comfortable fork), with a tough fork which no present node will settle for… is disingenuous at finest. T
ightening guidelines (like BIP110): Gentle fork, will 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 your complete 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 most recent consensus guidelines, you’re insecure! You’ll lose funds! You’ll mine invalid blocks! You’ll [insert additional hyperbole here]!”
This is able to be true of a consensus change that has, nicely, consensus. Whereas BIP110 has made a valiant effort to realize 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 by some means BIP110 positive aspects 51%+ of the community hashrate on/earlier than block 961632… then, alright. It’s enforced, since as a comfortable fork a majority of miners can unilaterally implement it within the absence of a totally adopted URSF (successfully a misnomer, as this could type of be a tough fork).
“However Jason! It will probably’t acquire consensus by already having consensus! It’s a must to give it an opportunity!”
Firstly… no I don’t, although I’ve. Second, it’s a rushed proposal that by no means had the time to even try to acquire actual consensus. It’s been 7 months because the launch of the primary BIP110 consumer. 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 out there has handed with no change in total sentiment from any related gamers. If it hasn’t gained ample adoption up to now 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 chance right here early on when Core proposed its OP_RETURN change. I personally anticipated one thing notably egregious to hit the chain virtually instantly, and to the very best 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 need CSAM within the chain? After all not. Am I a pedophile if I don’t help 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 executed lots to bother either 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 assume 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 comfortable fork proposal… which provably can’t cease spam, arbitrary information, and so forth. (Sure, I do know, proponents will declare it’s not about spam… and also will make semantic arguments that it does cease information as nicely… neither of which seems to be appropriate.)
I’ll shut with the concession that I may very well be improper. I’m not Nostradamus, and I can’t precisely predict the 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 information factors, stay vigilant, and do what’s finest for you and your mining income. Don’t be gaslit by both facet of the talk, and make your personal selections.
Right here’s a hyperlink to the identical doc linked above for ease of entry.
