It is a visitor submit by Jason Hughes, VP of Improvement and Engineering at Ocean Mining. Opinions expressed are completely his personal and don’t essentially replicate these of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Journal. The article initially appeared on X.com and has been revealed with the permission of the writer.
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 beneficial properties 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, can be pulled alongside for the experience. 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 number of deceptive details about this entire factor, particularly within the context of mining. Just a few 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 state of affairs. BIP110 is NOT with out danger to miners selecting to undertake it. Miners not supporting BIP110 aren’t all of a sudden mining “invalid” blocks simply because a proposal that isn’t but adopted merely exists. You’re not a foul individual 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 write down a protracted 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 bought revealed. So I went forward and up to date it, and effectively, right here it’s.
Once more, take into account this was written months in the past, meant to be as agnostic as attainable 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 necessary selections about your operations, you want to pay attention to all of this with out the sugarcoating and, frankly, outright deceptive data coming from a few of the BIP110 proponents. You should be vigilant and determine what’s best for you.
Whereas there may be actually some deceptive data from the opposition as effectively, 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 should you help BIP110. Don’t sign should you don’t help BIP110 or don’t care. Both means, monitor the community on/round/earlier than block 961632.
Should you proceed to see non-signaling blocks from main swimming pools, you could be fairly sure they’re not going to all of a sudden determine 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 probability, 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 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.
Shifting 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 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 an additional day. Suffice it to say, I feel it’s logical and proper to say that even 15% isn’t 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 needed Segwit. There was large financial and neighborhood weight behind it. With out rehashing that entire factor, as loads of sources on the subject from earlier than BIP110 are price a learn, suffice it to say that BIP110 and Segwit activations aren’t 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 number 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 prior to now 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 through DATUM on OCEAN carries nearly no danger 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 forth.
It’s superior that the power to take action exists, and I wouldn’t have it some other means… 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 greatest curiosity to destabilize the community in such a means. A part of the explanation for early signaling and lock-in durations is to assist coordinate upgrades in a easy trend. Ready till the final minute negates that profit completely. 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, corresponding to different mining swimming pools, exchanges, massive lightning nodes, retailers, and so forth. A supermajority of that are monitored with express permission and affirmation/coordination.
QUICK FACT: All main mining swimming pools I monitor are presently 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 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 among 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 smooth fork), with a tough fork which no present node will settle for… is disingenuous at greatest. T
ightening guidelines (like BIP110): Comfortable fork, could be enforced by miners in the event that they select to take action. Loosening guidelines (like canceling a halving): Exhausting fork, cannot be enforced by miners with out successfully 100% buy-in from all the community… which isn’t prone 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 is able to be true of a consensus change that has, effectively, 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 beneficial properties 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 totally adopted URSF (successfully a misnomer, as this might type of be a tough fork).
“However Jason! It will possibly’t acquire consensus by already having consensus! It’s important to give it an opportunity!”
Firstly… no I don’t, though 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 “necessary” signaling begins as of now (much less by the point you learn this). 90% of the time accessible has handed with no change in total sentiment from any related gamers. If it hasn’t gained ample adoption prior 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 significantly egregious to hit the chain nearly instantly, and to one of the best 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 situation… 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 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 executed lots to bother either 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.
Total, I principally assume 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 not cease spam, arbitrary knowledge, 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 knowledge as effectively… neither of which seems to be appropriate.)
I’ll shut with the concession that I may very well be mistaken. 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% probability of truly succeeding… and I think about that beneficiant. You’ll be able to take my opinions on this nevertheless you want, however I extremely suggest 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 facet of the talk, and make your individual selections.
Right here’s a hyperlink to the identical doc linked above for ease of entry.
