scaling bitcoin, hong kong Scaling Bitcoin Hong Kong returned for day two today, with presentations showcasing the breadth of ideas for how bitcoin’s transaction processing capacity can be improved and the speed at which some have consolidated into plans of action.
Audience enthusiasm was more pronounced early in the day as proposals for longstanding ideas such as payment channels via the Lightning Network were demonstrated with renewed clarity, while developer Pieter Wuille wowed with segregated witness – a proposal for scaling the bitcoin blockchain without requiring a hard fork.
A change to the bitcoin protocol that is not backwards compatible, the hard fork has emerged as a contentious issue given what some in the community view as its potential risks. Effectively, a hard fork would require all members of bitcoin’s disparate ecosystem to upgrade their software in near unison, with the implied risk that any divisions could create two versions of the bitcoin blockchain.
Still, excitement for Wuille’s proposal to avoid a hard fork was balanced by an equally embraced appeal by Bloq founder and core developer Jeff Garzik for the bitcoin community to pursue a solution that requires a hard fork, in part to remove fear over the issue.
In a talk aimed at breaking down the pros and cons of various increases to the size of blocks on the bitcoin blockchain, Garzik voiced his belief that failure to meet the challenge head on could have a lasting negative impact on bitcoin’s perception.
Garzik said: "A hard fork will signal that we’re willing to grow, that we’re willing to change, that we’re willing to change the system. Not increasing it will be seen as, we want to increase fees, we want to push people off the system." Garzik’s political appeal was balanced by an equally strong academic appeal in which he said that […]
