Subject: [bitcoin-dev] Working Towards Consensus

From: Jeremy Rubin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 1 May 2022 19:43:29 -0700

Developers,

There is much to say about the events of the last two weeks and the
response to them. I've been searching for the right words to share here,
but I think it best that short of a more thoughtful writeup I start with a
timely small step with the below comments.

First, let me be clear: I am not advancing a Speedy Trial(ST) activation of
Bitcoin Improvement Proposal-119 (BIP-119) CheckTemplateVerify (CTV) at
this time.

I'm skipping any discussion of the drama here. Most of you are interested
in developing Bitcoin, not drama. Let's try to keep this thread focused on
the actual work. I'll make some limited comments on the drama in a separate
thread, for those who care to hear from me on the subject directly.

I believe that the disinformation spread around my post ("7 Theses on a
next step for BIP-119"[0]) created three main negative outcomes within the
Bitcoin community:

1. Confusion about how Bitcoin's "technical consensus" works and how
changes are "approved".
2. Fear about the safety of CTV and covenants more broadly.
3. Misunderstandings around the properties of Speedy Trial, User Activated
Soft Fork (UASF), User Resisted Soft Fork (URSF), Soft Forks, Hard Forks,
and more.

While I cannot take responsibility for the spread of the disinformation, I
do apologize to anyone dealing with it for the role my actions have had in
leading to the current circumstance.

I personally take some solace in knowing that the only way out of this is
through it. The conversations happening now seem to have been more or less
inevitable, this has brought them to the surface, and as a technical
community we are able to address them head on if -- as individuals and
collectively -- we choose to. And, viewed through a certain lens, these
conversations represent incredibly important opportunities to participate
in defining the future of Bitcoin that would not be happening otherwise.
Ultimately, I am grateful to live in a time where I am able to play a small
role in such an important process. This is the work.

In the coming months, I expect the discourse to be messy, but I think the
work is clear cut that we should undertake at least the following:

1. Make great efforts to better document how Bitcoin's technical consensus
process works today, how it can be improved, and how changes may be
formally reviewed while still being unofficially advanced.
2. Work diligently to address the concerns many in the community have
around the negative potential of covenants and better explain the
trade-offs between levels of functionality.
3. Renew conversations about activation and release mechanisms and
re-examine our priors around why Speedy Trial may have been acceptable for
Taproot, was not acceptable for BIP-119, but may not be optimal long
term[1], and work towards processes that better captures the Bitcoin
network's diverse interests and requirements.
4. Work towards thoroughly systematizing knowledge around covenant
technologies so that in the coming months we may work towards delivering a
coherent pathway for the Bitcoin technical community to evaluate and put up
for offer to the broader community an upgrade or set of upgrades to improve
Bitcoin's capabilities for self sovereignty, privacy, scalability, and
decentralization.

This may not be the easiest path to take, but I believe that this work is
critical to the future of Bitcoin. I welcome all reading this to share your
thoughts with this list on how we might work towards consensus going
forward, including any criticisms of my observations and recommendations
above. While I would expect nothing less than passionate debate when it
comes to Bitcoin, remember that at the end of the day we all largely share
a mission to make the world a freer place, even if we disagree about how we
get there.

Yours truly,

Jeremy

[0]: https://rubin.io/bitcoin/2022/04/17/next-steps-bip119/
[1]: http://r6.ca/blog/20210615T191422Z.html I quite enjoyed Roconnor's
detailed post on Speedy Trial

--
@JeremyRubin <https://twitter.com/JeremyRubin>