, the Bitcoin network’s second largest mining pool, has recently announced that the group is interested in increasing the Bitcoin block size and the Bitcoin Unlimited proposal. ViaBTC The statement of ViaBTC on social media immediately gained massive exposure in online Bitcoin communities, as many Bitcoin users responded positively to the group’s intentions to work with Bitcoin Unlimited with some developers voluntarily offering help to deploy Bitcoin Unlimited in ViaBTC’s network. @ViaBTC @btc_unlimited @BitcoinClassic @bitcoincoreorg Great I am happy to work with you to deploy Bitcoin Unlimited in your network! — Andrew Stone (@GAndrewStone) August 31, 2016 Approximately 24 hours after the announcement of ViaBTC was released to the public, the market share of the mining group increased substantially , overtaking BTCC and Antpool to rise from the fifth to the second largest mining pool in the market today. Users presume that the massive increase in the hashrate of ViaBTC was initiated by miners that were agitated with the inaction of popular mining groups like HaoBTC that have consistently expressed their support for block size increase. Rising Concerns With ViaBTC’s Statement Presuming that the hashrate spike of ViaBTC was caused by the frustration of miners and users towards mining pool’s inactivity, Bitcoin community members are concerned with ViaBTC’s public statement. While the mining pool’s announcement led to its short term spike, it is still difficult to speculate whether the pool will deploy Bitcoin Unlimited or other proposals to increase the block size. If the ViaBTC development team is truly interested in the idea of implementing bigger blocks, an action should be taken. Once a proposal like Bitcoin Unlimited is deployed, the mining pool can then evaluate and talk about its potential positive or negative impacts to both its miners and the Bitcoin network.
