Chinese Ultimatum: Miners Discuss Switching to Bitcoin Classic
Bitcoin scalability debate gained steam as 8btc.com published details of the Bitcoin Classic implementation proposal discussed by miners of China.
According to the publication, in case Hong Kong agreement fails to be enacted, the miners will switch to Bitcoin Classic.
The Last Warning
75% of the network’s mining capacity is controlled by four Chinese pools, namely F2Pool, AntPool, BTCC, and BW Pool. Also consider that the network’s computation capacity has experienced threefold increase this year.
The reason behind that is competition between major miners, who have to invest more and more in new equipment. This degree of investment makes investors of China feel worried about the fate and profitability of their investment, and make moves in order to secure it.
No wonder each party to the bitcoin scalability debate flirts with Chinese miners every now and then and accuses their counterpart of flirting at numerous conferences held in Hong Kong or Beijing. Nevertheless, it’s hard to deny that the Chinese miners are interested in that, as they make their profits in cryptocurrency. Therefore, Bitcoin’s stable development plays into their hands.
Data from Bitcoinchain.com/pools
Following the agreement between individual participants of Bitcoin Core and the lion’s share of the industry’s players, including Chinese pools, the scalability problem started fading. Today, however, the debate raged again: Bitcoin Core and alternate developers made their moves. Now it’s all about a feature published by Chinese bitcoin publication 8btc.com. As far as we can get from an amateur translation, the feature contains a proposal on switching to Bitcoin Classic unless Bitcoin Core launches a hard fork to increase maximum block size to 2 megabytes this July, and the following discussion. The main thing here is comments and consensus of the parties.
Conditions of Switching to Bitcoin Classic
The scenario in question is that possible inability or rejection of Bitcoin Core to launch SegWit and the hard fork will be considered a breach of the Hong Kong agreement, and will thus waive any liability of other signees thereto. Seeking to avoid dependence on Bitcoin Core, miners may resort to their Bitcoin Classic competitors so that they could have an insurance in the conditions of total lack of trust.
Notably, the key condition of switching to Bitcoin Classic is Bitcoin Core’s release enabling miners to vote for implementation of SegWit 0.13.1, as well as Bitcoin Classic’s release of their own client on top of 0.13.1 considering SegWit and the 2 MB hard fork.
The Community Reacts
According to different sources, the news that Chinese miners may side with Bitcoin Classic, so-called #corexit, surprised most representatives of the industry. Peter Todd, one of Bitcoin Core leaders, said he can neither confirm nor deny the information, though he personally believes it is fake.
Appears to be a hoax; if it is real I suggest miners put their public names on it and tweet it.
— Peter Todd (@peterktodd) June 30, 2016
https://twitter.com/__Wintermute_/status/748545171076222977
We couldn’t obtain any confirmation or denial from the discussion at 8btc.com. However, according to Bitmain co-founder Jihan Wu, 90% of the discussing participants don’t mind a Plan B.
On the 8btc forum, after reading the responses, 90% of them showing no objection against the proposal.
— Jihan Wu (@JihanWu) June 30, 2016
In case it’s true, one may only wonder why those interested from the West don’t try to participate in the discussion.
According to Coinmarketcap.com
Notably, even considering misunderstanding of the current events by the Western audience, the market reacted with Bitcoin price upsurge once the news was published. No, we’re not insinuating anything.
Eugene Muratov
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