Great News! BIP148 is now a voting option for those mining on Slush's pool! This option went live on 2nd June 2017. It will be interesting to monitor these numbers over the coming weeks as core currently has around 50% of user votes (of those voted). The addition of this to their signalling allows the users to focus the output of the full mining power on what the group decides will be best.
Slush's Pool has been operating since December 2010 and is free for any miner to join. They have developed tools allowing for a democratic system in the future of mined blocks and signalling making it a great alternative for those wanting to choose what BIPs/forks to mine without running solo. During their use of this tool the users have seen the passing of Bitcoin Classic (2mb hard fork) and they maintain the more relevant chain outcomes. This is a great addition to the options and allows a smaller pool to make a bigger difference especially in the UASF space.
For the technical:
Currently the majority vote is for Bitcoin Core on Slush and their Segwit (BIP9) update, this could be maintained for some time and we might find a increase in signalling from other pools as the time approaches with miners wanting to avoid a user based decision. Given the activation date of the UASF BIP148 goes live on 1st August then the activation deadline to get in with the decision being made by miners would need to be 95% for the BIP9 retargeting period during the 1st July 2017. This is due to the a 2 week lock in and 2 week activation period.
The transition preference in my current view for the smoothest least disruptive movement to segwit:
- Segwit (BIP9) should be activated before 1st August 2017 by miners.
- UASF (BIP148) live with minimum 75% miner support. This gives a slight increase in transactions per second while we wait for the readjustment in difficulty plus reduces risk of a hard fork.
- UASF goes live during transition period to BIP9, BIP9 takes over due to miner output causing some confusion but the chain remains as one.
- BIP148 takes the lead and the standard chain falls away with over 50% miner support.
- Hard fork resolve with many options including BU, current rules and UASF - we do not want this!
Screen shot of Slush's Pool voting as at 7 June 2017
