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What are the sneakiest things that can be done to Bitcoin via softforks? Or another way to phrase it, which types of softforks are so powerful that they are almost like hardforks?

I figure that the question could spark some interesting replies.

An example is SegWit, which effectively increased the block size without technically increasing it. Another example would be some sort of increasing transaction tax on older UTXOs, where in order to move them one must pay an extra fee determined by how many blocks they have been dormant for.

What else?

1F52B 2y ago

Any softfork that privileges or distinguishes miners from other nodes.

IMO this is actually the main thing that’s objectionable about BIP300/301, not the concept of Drivechains in themselves

Having a new type of message and payments that go to a miner “I want to start/merge-mine a drivechain” means you need to *know* who the miners are, and they need to handle the BMM in the coinbase tx. This is very different from all nodes equally and blindly passing transactions and blocks around to each other, not caring if the other end is a miner or not.

To me, it is critically important that people can mine without being (easily) detected.

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Discussion

1F52B 2y ago

In a sense it subtly, but quite possibly fundamentally changes the economics and incentives around mining, which *could* have bad unintended effects that *could* be irreversible