Jimmy Song: A Fork in the Road for Bitcoin?

After years of what has seemed like an endless debate, bitcoin may be at a crucial turning point in its relatively short lifetime. The question network scalability has divided the community into several factions which are seemingly irreconcilable. However, in just a few weeks, the future of bitcoin may be decided as miners and users throw their support behind one of many proposals to propel the bitcoin network into a new era.

Bitcoin Developer and Principal Architect at Paxos, Jimmy Song, joins us to discuss the different scalability proposals for which miners are currently signaling their support. Among others, Segregated Witness (BIP 141), Emergent Consensus (Bitcoin Unlimited) and SegWit2x (The New York Agreement), are gaining significant traction among miners. Will one of these proposals gain majority support, allowing for the network to upgrade with relative ease, or will we enter a situation where one proposal is backed by a strong minority of users, potentially forking the network into two?

Topics covered in this episode:

• Jimmy’s background as a Bitcoin Developer and former VP of Engineering at Armory
• A broad overview of bitcoin network’s current situation
• An overview of the different scaling proposals for which miners are signaling their support
• Important dates coming up in July and August of 2017
• The difference between Segregated Witness and SegWit2x
• The UASF and how it may affect SegWit2x implementation

Episode links:

• BIP91: The SegWit Activation "Kludge" That Should Keep Bitcoin Whole
• Examining Bitmain’s Press Release
• BIP 148 UASF Q&A
• Greg Maxwell: "a hasty snapshot of a few of my views"
• UAHF: A contingency plan against UASF (BIP148)
• How to Give Everyone More Control
• "Bitcoin Scaling Agreement at Consensus 2017
• Bitcoin, UASF and Skin in the Game
• UASF BIP148 Scenarios and Game Theory
• Why the UASF Segwit Scenario is Hopelessly Naive
• [bitcoin-discuss] [Bitcoin-segwit2x] Alpha Milestone

This episode is hosted by Brian Fabian Crain and Sébastien Couture. Show notes and listening options: epicenter.tv/189