Twitter is bursting with messages - new tweets appear with stunning speed.
After months of anger and controversy, a group of businesses and miner farms using Bitcoin software to provide services suddenly abolished an attempt to change the rules of the network. Segwit2x was scheduled for mid-November - this upgrade has become something of a monster frightened by small children. Hardfork not only provoked a lot of discussions; he also overtook a cloud of uncertainty about the future of Bitcoin, but he still retreated.
An obvious joy was taking away those who for months had spoken out against this proposal and spoke about a distorted understanding of how the further development of the protocol should proceed.
"The Segwit2x hardcore has been canceled! Common sense triumphs, "exclaimed
Litecoin creator Charlie Lee. "I left Twitter for 15 minutes, and you had time to cancel B2X, while I was not looking," joked Andreas Antonopoulos.
The developer Akin Fernandez, one of the legion of bloggers who strongly opposed the proposal, left a laconic message:
"Bitcoin won."
Of course, the most "loud" were the initial reactions of those people who joined the long smoldering protest movement called "NO2X". The movement secured the support of dozens of companies and users. They expressed their resistance to adding the prefix "NO2X" to their names in social media.
Criticism of Segwit2x was mainly from developers, many of whom did not even deny the need to increase the blocks. Discontent was caused by the culture that arose around start-ups. She was very lacking in competence over how previously changes were made to the network or even what kinds of ways to make changes.
UNEXPECTED INVESTMENT
Surprisingly, even many Segwit2x supporters sighed with relief when they heard about the cancellation.
"I'm glad that everything is over," said Guy Corem, a former miner who signed the original Segwit2x agreement in May. "This was the right decision."
Others noted the hostility that their public support entailed, as well as the tactics used by the adherents of the NO2X segment. Participants of the last part were criticized for humiliating comments and attacks towards people supporting Segwit2x.
"I think now I can finally pay more attention to more productive technical pursuits than tracking news and fighting trolls on the Internet," the developer of Segwit2x, Jean-Pierre Rapp, shared his impressions.
Stinging debates almost did not stop at such social resources as Reddit and Twitter. It allegedly even reached death threats.
This state of affairs led to a feeling that the Segwit2x proposal was not so welcomed by the community, as expected at the beginning.
"We feel relieved. The goal of NYA was to rally the community and to keep most users on one block, at least a little longer, "wrote in his blog Peter Smith, the CEO of the crypto-software provider Blockchain.
Others talked about this: they say, there is a sense in hardforks to increase the size of the block, but only if support is from all corners of the ecosystem.
"We are all in favor of increasing the size of the bloc, as our clients deal with the commission, but we want it to be done in a responsible way that will bring the whole community together and take more votes into consideration," said Ron Coins.ph founder and CEO Hows.
NEW SOLUTIONS
However, there remains a strong feeling that Bitcoin still needs to somehow expand in the future, if the crypto currency is trying to attract new users.
"We will either bring larger blocks to people [with Bitcoin], or lead people to larger blocks [using Bitcoin Cash]," said developer Peter Reisun.
It is not surprising that the news about the cancellation of the desire to increase the size of the bloc caused the extreme approval of the supporters of the Lightning Network - the proposed "out-of-cheek" microtransaction network, which intends to displace bitcoin transactions from the blockade itself.
"Now that 2x is officially over, I'm very excited to go back to developing long-term solutions like Lightning!", Elizabeth Stark, Lightning Network CEO, wrote on Twitter.
But in spite of the fact that the news can present Lightning as a probable solution, the large proposals, which supposedly should help the network to move from the dead point, will now be very carefully considered.
At the Scaling Bitcoin conference at Stanford University, unresolved issues that could be resolved technologically were considered during this weekend. They included ensuring the confidentiality of transactions and a better understanding of the economics of their interactions.
As Aviv Zohar of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem said, in the long run, larger blocks may still be needed to optimize the network.
In this regard, some people consider not so much Lightning, but alternative protocols like Bitcoin Cash.
"We can see more and more businesses that switch to Bitcoin Cash for on-chain transactions because of the high cost of Bitcoin transfers that Segwit2x tried to solve," said Civic CEO and CEO Winnie Linem.
Other people, such as Jake Smith, decided that "Bitcoin signed a death sentence," so they sold or are going to sell their BTC.
NOT LAST
But while everyone sighs with relief, new thoughts are emerging about the future of Bitcoin.
The key factor dividing the community for many is a decentralized, digital way of moving value that is not controlled by anyone. For some, the failure of the Segwit2x simply shows the power of technology when it comes to protecting against the influence that can destroy it all.
Bitcoin developer Bashco pointed to a long chain of attempts to increase the size of the block or to link hands to developers with the help of similar suggestions. He believes that there will be others.
"They will pour their wounds and regroup," the developer said in a conversation with Coindesk.
This view of things implies that Segwit2x was an attempt to "capture" Bitcoin - the developers of the upgrade allegedly wanted to rewrite the rules of the crypto currency without obtaining full approval from the community.
A controversial step was also the decision of the Segwit2x developers to remove the code, which included protection from the so-called "replay attack". This meant that the fork could take place in such a way that the users' funds would be at risk of the appearance of two jams.
Some people used the news to call for changes in culture and community. First of all, it concerned those who understood how governments can use such methods to distort or harm the protocol in subsequent years.
"We must continue to investigate the forks and divisions of the Cheyne, as well as create tools and proper protection, because it is almost certain to try again."
Blogger under the pseudonym WhalePanda wrote the
following tweet :
"We won this battle ... but they will come again and again to destroy Bitcoin. We will not forget. "
A source
