I wish to higher perceive the Bitcoin Core staff’s stance on the ideas and evolution of Bitcoin, notably in relation to Satoshi Nakamoto’s imaginative and prescient as outlined in “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Digital Money System.”
From my understanding, the Core staff locations a excessive precedence on sustaining Bitcoin’s safety, guaranteeing that any adjustments align with the ethos of “if it’s not damaged, don’t repair it.” There additionally seems to be a cautious method to implementing options that might alter Bitcoin’s incentive mechanisms or jeopardize its core integrity. I’m additionally conscious of the broad opinions concerning the introduction of sensible contracts and different utilities on Bitcoin.
What I’m inquisitive about is the staff’s perspective on scaling Bitcoin. Is the final opposition to scaling efforts primarily centered on altering Bitcoin itself or impacting its core incentive constructions? Or is it extra about preserving the elemental logic and strengths of Bitcoin as we all know it in the present day?
For instance, if there have been an answer that launched what we would name a Bardo Mitosis Layer for Bitcoin, enabling it to perform extra as a peer-to-peer money system—reaching immediate finality, censorship resistance, limitless TPS scaling to demand, and totally trustless operation—would such an answer be supported?
To make clear, this hypothetical resolution wouldn’t require adjustments to Bitcoin’s present protocol, nor would it not request a BIP, alter Bitcoin’s present safety ensures, or have an effect on Bitcoin’s incentive mechanisms in any manner. It could introduce no extra belief assumptions, no committees, federations, or intermediaries. As an alternative, it might make the most of mechanisms like Hashed Time-Locked Contracts (HTLCs) in a novel manner, working independently on the shopper degree. This method would stay fully impartial to Bitcoin’s present transactional construction, guaranteeing it doesn’t intervene with or modify present processes.
Such an answer would enable customers to seamlessly transfer between Bitcoin as a retailer of worth and this new layer as a digital money counterpart, inheriting Bitcoin’s safety and censorship resistance. I’ve by no means heard a transparent reply to this query posed on this manner: would this sort of ultimate system, rigorously audited and aligned with Bitcoin’s ideas, ever be acceptable to the Core staff? Or, to place it bluntly, is such an method merely by no means acceptable no matter its advantage?