A small but significant development is taking place in Bitcoin’s much-discussed decentralized consensus process, with some developers beginning to publicly gauge sentiment on competing soft fork proposals that would complement the software ruleset.
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More specifically, the effort began today with the creation of a page on the Bitcoin Wiki website called “Treaty support”, to which the pseudonymous developers of the network can testify to their interest in no less than nine proposalswith a six-option rating system.
The effort is not related to Bitcoin Core, the network’s main software implementation.
Still, it’s notable considering the process has been called out in previous Bitcoin consensus upgrades, dating back to the first soft fork, P2SH. in 2012and continue the legendary Fork Wars, with SegWitthe most controversial change yet, both with dedicated Wiki pages.
Covenants, a method of limiting the spending terms of specific UTXOs, have been gaining popularity since 2021, with the introduction of OP_CTV, written by developer Jeremy Rubin, although opinions at the time differed on the strength of the proposal and its promotion.
Among those being assessed for developer sentiment are OP_VAULT, a covenant scheme more specifically focused on preservation, and OP_CAT, a change that would bring back Satoshi-era capabilities such as the ability to run complex code queries.
Luke Dashjr, one of the network’s longest-standing contributors, weighs in on all their opinions, alongside newer newcomers like Jon Attack, Brandon Black and MoonSettler.
Should the effort gain traction, the page could emerge as one to watch.
Bitcoin’s governance process, although it is much debatedhas rarely adhered to a special process, with some former contributors arguing against the need for a process at all.
Still, this move is indicative of a general interest among the development community to move forward with code updates that improve Bitcoin for users, although there will likely remain debate over the preferred update, as well as the activation method it would enable.
This article is a To take. The opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.