The Bitcoin scaling debate is approaching its apogee. Several key proposals should be activated in the next few weeks. This can lead to the fact that some users and miners will separate from the current Bitcoin protocol and create their own network.
One of the reasons why several parties in this debate can not finally agree on one decision is that they all need user and business support. At the same time, it is quite difficult to understand the mood of the community members, since there is no generally accepted instrument allowing them to express their opinion.
Luke Dashjr, developer of Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin Knots, this week launched a scaling vote called KYCPoll, which requires a Coinbase account.
"Of course, this is not an ideal solution, since not everyone has a Coinbase account," the developer notes. "But it's still a useful source of data."
Voting KYCPoll is not the first attempt to know the opinions of users. On Twitter and other social networks in the past couple of months, such polls have surfaced. At Reddit and other forums fierce debates went for years. Periodically, even some schemes of voting with the help of coins appeared, not to mention the expression of support by miners with the power of hashing.
User surveys tend to be easily counterfeited and have other reliability problems. One of them - the results of standard Internet surveys are often distorted by users who vote many times with the help of fake accounts.
Dashir solves this problem with the API, which provides Coinbase - one of the largest exchanges and a purse, possibly having one of the largest user bases in the industry. Thanks to this API, only users whose identity has been confirmed on the exchange will be able to participate in the voting of KYCPoll. Since Coinbase verifies its customers using the procedure "Know Your Customer" (KYC), only real people can participate in the voting.
"This method is resistant to distortion of voting results by using fake accounts. It does not matter whether you are rich or not, and there is no need to jeopardize your coins in order to participate in the voting, "Dashir notes, explaining the advantages of KYCPoll.
In the debate about scaling, there are a few basic points that are included in the vote. For example, support for Segregated Witness (SegWit) - Updates Bitcoin protocol, increasing the bandwidth of the block. Also included in the survey is BIP148 - user-initiated soft support (UASF) - an update that involves SegWit's forced activation on August 1. Also there proposals are made aimed at the network's hard-core and increasing the block size. Other points of voting include issues related to softpoints and management in general, as well as an opinion on the media in the industry.
Despite the fact that KYCPoll uses Coinbase API, they are not connected in any way. Also, Dashir admits that this is not an ideal solution for researching the opinions of users, because only those who have a Coinbase account can vote, and it is far from at all - in particular, most Asian users crypto it, probably not. In addition, the availability of a Coinbase account does not guarantee that only bitcoin users will vote - the exchange works with other crypto-currencies. It is also worth noting that voting KYCPoll is by no means anonymous, as many would like. Of course, Coinbase will not be able to find out how one or another user voted, but Dashir will.
Some of these problems can soon be resolved. Also, the opportunity to vote for users of other exchanges that have undergone KYC verification can be added. However, Dashir notes that he himself is unlikely to work on improvements and hopes that someone else will start developing this open source project.
"This is a kind of side project, which I did only because no one else did. I'm not a web developer, which also explains why I can not fully guarantee the security of the data. I hope that someone who is better versed in this area will undertake the development of the project, "he said.
You can vote for one of the solutions for scaling or simply see the results here. More information about voting can be found in the branch about KYCPoll on Reddit.
Like any proposal of the convinced supporters of the Bitcoin Core and UASF line, the vote reflects the radical positions of the six-year-old, and, in fact, does not take into account the compromise offer of SegWit 2X, which already received broad support from miners and businesses, but is ignored by Bitcoin Core, as it threatens the monopoly on Development of this team.
Of course, such a one-sided survey is designed, first of all, not for real clarification of the opinions of users, but for manipulating the public opinion before the events expected at the end of July. However, if a significant number of users (that is, tens of thousands) participate in it, then its results will be interesting, both taking into account the opinion of a significant part of the community, primarily from the United States. However, it is unlikely to affect the real events on the network.