Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] A Small Modification to Segwit

From: Bram Cohen <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 10 Apr 2017 07:46:35 -0700

On Sun, Apr 9, 2017 at 11:44 AM, Erik Aronesty via bitcoin-dev <
[email-masked]> wrote:

>
> Perhaps regular, high-consensus POW changes might even be *necessary* as a
> part of good maintenance of cryptocurrency in general.   Killing the
> existing POW, and using an as-yet undefined, but deployment-bit ready POW
> field to flip-flop between the current and the "next one" every 8 years or
> or so, with a ramp down beginning in the 7th year....  A stub function that
> is guaranteed to fail unless a new consensus POW is selected within 7
> years.
>

That would force hard forks, cause huge governance problems on selecting
the new PoW algorithm, and probably cause even worse mining chip
manufacturer centralization because it would force miners to buy new chips
instead of sticking with the ones they've already got. They'll likely have
to keep buying new ones anyway as technology improves but it doesn't help
to force that process to go even faster.