As I defined in a Take two weeks in the past, I feel the menace (or promise, relying in your perspective) of protocol ossification is considerably exaggerated, at the very least at this cut-off date.
Sure, the speed of sentimental forks has slowed down considerably through the years, the final one having been Taproot in 2021. However it appears this has extra to do with a scarcity of curiosity within the potential upgrades that’ve been proposed since then, moderately than it being as a result of lack of an excellent course of for deploying protocol upgrades. (Though that’s not precisely a solved downside both.)
Bitcoin Core builders are typically funded on a no-strings-attached foundation or outright volunteers, that means they’re not required to work on any particular a part of the codebase. As such, their time and vitality can be devoted to no matter they discover most attention-grabbing or essential to work on. Thus far, that hasn’t actually been any of the tender fork proposals: the assorted covenant-style opcodes aren’t unequivocally perceived to supply the kind of groundbreaking use circumstances that deserve prioritization, and whereas Drivechains sound nice in concept, their main draw back remains to be that miners can in the end steal cash from them.
However even when Bitcoin Core builders aren’t , that doesn’t imply it’s not possible to improve Bitcoin. For higher or worse, anybody with the appropriate skillset (admittedly not a really low bar) can all the time deploy a tender fork by means of another shopper, whilst a person activated tender fork (UASF). But, regardless of some rumblings once in a while, nobody has finished this but.
I think that is at the very least partly as a result of the proponents of those tender forks aren’t satisfied a UASF would really achieve success. And if a UASF wouldn’t achieve success, perhaps the improve shouldn’t be value doing within the first place…
This text is a Take. Opinions expressed are totally the creator’s and don’t essentially replicate these of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Journal.
