Subject: [bitcoin-dev] Update on "Speedy" Trial: The circus rolls on

From: Michael Folkson <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Apr 2021 12:40:42 +0100

I will continue to update the list on the latest developments as I see
them. That's all I can do.

So the latest circus act is apparently a technical decision made by a
coin toss. The rationale being that this discussion on using block
height vs a mix of block height and MTP was bikeshedding all along.

Here's a short abridged timeline on the views on block height vs MTP
of the organizer (Jeremy Rubin) of that coin toss:

March 8th: "I have a preference for fully height based design,
correct." https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/21377#issuecomment-802396191

March 24th: "There are two NACKs, one (luke-jr) against MTP, one
(jeremyrubin) against height.”
https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2021-March/018715.html

April 6th: "The following folks in the meeting agreed to abide by the
flip.... jeremyrubin"
https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2021-April/018742.html

April 7th: "So @achow101 is correct that it is not the coin flip which
made the decision."
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/21393#issuecomment-815388126

Please note on March 24th the only person NACKing block height in that
meeting was Jeremy Rubin. He has gone from preferring block height, to
NACKing block height, to thinking this discussion all along was
bikeshedding and worthy of a coin flip to admitting the coin flip was
theater.

All of this makes me extremely uncomfortable and I dread to think what
individuals and businesses all over the world who have plans to
utilize and build on Taproot are making of all of this. As an
individual I would like to distance myself from this circus. I will
try to keep the mailing list informed though of further developments
re Speedy Trial in Core or progress on an alternative client.

There are two StackExchange answers here on block height vs MTP, one
by David Harding and one by myself for those that are interested in
the technical considerations.
https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/103854/should-block-height-or-mtp-or-a-mixture-of-both-be-used-in-a-soft-fork-activatio

-- 
Michael Folkson
Email: [email-masked]
Keybase: michaelfolkson
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