TD₿: Unpacking Bitcoin's Social Contract by Hasu
TL;DR The rules of protocol are decided and renegotiated continuously on the Bitcoin social layer.
Hey Bitcoiners,
At block 709,632, the first upgrade to Bitcoin’s core protocol in over 4 years, Taproot, activated.
It’s incredibly exciting to see an upgrade activate on Bitcoin without much controversy or in-fighting within the community.
The important part to remember here is that this upgrade is voluntarily accepted by the nodes of the network. If they don’t upgrade, they are still backward compatible with the protocol. A man could wake up from a coma with bitcoin from 2011, and his bitcoin would still be accepted.
Hasu touches on the social contract of the Bitcoin protocol in this excellent post (12/03/2018).
The SegWit upgrade brought the Lightning Network to Bitcoin. I wonder…what innovation will Taproot enable?
Tick tock next block,
Cory Klippsten
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Quote of the Day
“Open source software is a meritocracy of ideas, not of people. So people are always talking about "Who controls Bitcoin?" Good ideas control Bitcoin. Not people.” - Ben Prentice, Producer of the What Bitcoin Did Podcast & Creator of wtfhappenedin1971.com
Meme of the Day
(h/t @dergigi)
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