I thought his views were well reasoned and agree with his stance overall. Pete also articulated some good responses to counterpoint them. I want little to no base layer changes at this point unless there is a systemic issue or extremely strong case is made.
Discussion
Agree on the counterpoints, his counterpoints literally argue that we need to continue to upgrade bitcoin. If software is not updated it dies.
Explain why does Bitcoin die if it's not updated? If it's working now, why would it not continue to work. I'm fine with looking for bugs etc but it's new features that worries me.
Bitcoin is software, if software is not updated it becomes less secure over time because there's always people trying to find vulnerabilities. Bitcoin has had several major network halting bugs fixed in its time that if left unchecked would have made bitcoin die many years ago.
As far as upgrades go if bitcoin is not upgraded then over time it will be replaced by something the market finds more valuable. This can take decades but the possibility is left wide open if it is not continuously upgraded.
This is basic software development 101.
Agree fully with the first point. Disagree fully with the second point at least for the next 10 years.
Unix timestamp issue, multiple unaddressed DOS vectors, suboptimal package relay, etc. could go on but there are many bugs that need to be addressed. Without it Bitcoin will literally cease to operate eventually. This is fact, not hyperbole.
These are separate to CTV tho correct? CTV is feature adding not bug fixing.
Correct, CTV is a net new op code soft fork.
Yeah so that's a no from me.
It’s fine if you don’t like one particular fork option, but keep in mind without certain forks Bitcoin will 100% die. The Unix timestamp is the classic example. So being 100% anti fork is factually 100% wanting Bitcoin to die.
Nobody is anti all forks. I'll consider each and judge on it's merits. Imo CTV is reckless and unnecessary and I question the judgment of anyone pushing it. Taproot enabled more shitcoinery and devs have not recovered sufficient social captial to propose such sweeping changes so soon.
Depends on your definition of shitcoin. If you are referring to things actually in production such as tokens, ordinals, and inscriptions that is inaccurate. These generally use Segwit not Taproot, and even if we somehow could remove Segwit and Taproot you can still do inscriptions. If you are referring to potential future state theorized taproot specific functionality such as Optimistic Rollups on BitVM, those are still only theorized possibilities and may never happen. So the proverbial jury is still out. And even if they do technically work they will not be very efficient or “ideal” so even if technically viable they may never gain users. Hard to say without a lot more time and data.
I sat at the open source stage in Madeira the whole day and listened to hours of this type of conversation. It's not for me honestly. You hash it out with your peers and present your ideas for us normal folk to comment on in the social concensus arena. I'm happy with send receive and hold on base layer + maintenance and minor alterations for L2s. I won't be agreeing to more than that for a number of years if ever.
That’s okay. Genuine question not a rude gotcha attempt: would you ever consider a scalability fork? Let’s say Bitcoin swallows everything in 20 years and demand is so off the charts a base chain transaction is $1000 each or maybe even $10,000 or more all the time in today’s dollars, would you consider then or still a no? If not why?
Absolutely. In that scenario I'd almost certainly agree to a change. We might all be on L2s at that point and the fees are necessary to secure the network so we'll see but I'm open to alterations just extremely conservative. I'll give you a quick example, my WordPress site ground to a halt because there were to many plugins and one as stuck in an event loop draining all the server resources. Now I just use it as a website and moved all my cms elsewhere, it performs much better. It's small scale put the principle holds.
Interesting perspective. I'm generally in the camp of "push Bitcoin to the limits of its current form, then discuss upgrades."
Absolutely
I think push to the limits and then discuss change is a rational anti-scalability fork for now position for sure. I just fear when people say no changes forever. That’ll kill Bitcoin. 🫡
It's possible to be anti softfork upgrade in the short/medium term and pro security/bug fork
It certainly is possible but it’s also not that simple. Any fork cannot be a 100% security or say a 100% scaling fork. They aren’t so black and white.