Roughly 2 weeks ago, ViaBTC, a relatively novel bitcoin mining pool that launched before this summer, garnered some attending on social media due to the announcement that they’re currently testing Bitcoin Unlimited, which is a software client that allows users to betoken back upward for hard fork induced changes to Bitcoin’s block size limit.
Although the mining puddle was alone launched this summer, it has already gained plenty hash charge per unit of measurement to larn the fifth largest pool. Bitcoin Magazine late reached out to ViaBTC CEO as well as founder Haiyang to uncovering out to a greater extent than well-nigh this relatively unknown musician inward the bitcoin mining space.
Who is ViaBTC?
The history of ViaBTC has been described inward a post on the mining pool’s Medium blog. To summarize, Haiyang left Tencent to start a mining puddle as well as establish an investor to assist amongst the projection on Chinese-language Bitcoin forum 8btc.
According to Haiyang, ViaBTC’s early on investor resources work organization human relationship for a large constituent of the mining pool’s hash rate. “ViaBTC mining puddle had an investor at its early on stage, who provided us amongst the startup uppercase as well as hash rate, but didn’t accept business office inward the decision-making as well as operating of the mining pool,” he told Bitcoin Magazine. “Currently, unopen to i 3rd of the hash charge per unit of measurement is from our investor, as well as the balance from our customers.”
Haiyang added that the mining puddle mainly uses the Ant Miner S7, but they also role the Avalon 6, though less frequently.
Support for Bigger Blocks
In add-on to their sizeable portion of the network hash rate, ViaBTC has also gained some notoriety due to their opinion on the Bitcoin block size debate. On Twitter, the mining puddle noted, “We are No. five Bitcoin mining pool, running Bitcoin Core currently, interested inward large [blocks].”
While other major mining pools direct keep made an agreement to non run choice software clients, ViaBTC has no such arrangement. “I direct keep communicated amongst some [Bitcoin Core contributors], but no formal communication or understanding has been made,” said Haiyang.
Haiyang also made ViaBTC’s back upward for an growth inward the block size bound really clear. “I back upward bigger blocks,” he said. “Obviously, the electrical flow 1MB block size restricts the evolution of Bitcoin. By increasing the block size bound as well as scaling Bitcoin, Bitcoin itself tin endure kept unproblematic as well as pure, as well as the introduction of excessive complexity tin endure avoided.”
In the past, some direct keep criticized Bitcoin Core contributors’ preference for implementing Segregated Witness via a soft fork due to the perceived complexity involved amongst the code involved inward making these improvements. Various Bitcoin Core contributors direct keep countered this claim past times stating protocol changes via difficult forks may endure to a greater extent than complex due to the demand to motion users over to a completely carve upward blockchain.
Currently Testing Bitcoin Unlimited
Although ViaBTC would similar to run into an growth inward the block size limit, Haiyang does non run into Bitcoin Classic’s BIP 109 implementation equally the proper solution. “I intend that it’s besides shortsighted for Bitcoin Classic to scale the block to 2MB at i time, as well as it’ll endure faced amongst the electrical flow problems inward the close future,” he said. “We demand some machinery to dynamically adjust the block size limit. Hence, inward my view, Bitcoin Unlimited’s protocol is to a greater extent than appropriate at the electrical flow stage.”
In damage of a threshold for activating a difficult fork on the Bitcoin network, Haiyang believes something similar to the 75percent activation threshold outlined inward BIP 109 would endure appropriate. “I handgrip that 75 percent or a slightly higher fourscore percent is the suitable threshold, since no Bitcoin mining puddle has a hash charge per unit of measurement proportion of over xx percent at present,” he said. “If the threshold gets besides high, as well as hence some Bitcoin mining puddle supporting the scaling or non volition larn a decisive factor; it goes against the thought of Bitcoin decentration. On the other hand, if the threshold gets besides low, as well as no consensus was reached past times the bulk of people on the Bitcoin network, bifurcation volition growth the Bitcoin scaling failure risk.”
Bifurcation is what took house later Ethereum’s recent attempt at difficult forking their network. Over 75 percent of mining ability had signaled at to the lowest degree implicit back upward of the difficult fork before it was activated.
The master Ethereum blockchain’s (now called Ethereum Classic) network hashrate is currently roughly 12 percent of the size of the hard-forked Ethereum chain’s hashrate, as well as the Ethereum Classic marketplace put cap is roughly 10 pct the size of the hard-forked chain’s marketplace put cap.
Bitcoin Unlimited was late criticized past times Bitcoin Core contributor as well as Blockstream CTO Greg Maxwell. Essentially, Bitcoin Unlimited signals back upward for BIP 109 past times default but does non genuinely back upward the total laid of rules outlined inward the Bitcoin Improvement Proposal. This had the lawsuit of forking Bitcoin Classic nodes off from the testnet.
Bitcoin Unlimited developer Andrew Stone responded to this criticism inward a weblog post.
“About over a calendar month ago, I did uncovering the difficult fork on the Bitcoin Testnet, but I was busy amongst other affairs then,” said Haiyang when asked for his thoughts on the incident. “I didn’t investigate the specific causes. It should endure irrelevant to the fact that nosotros are testing Bitcoin Unlimited.”
Haiyang plans to attend the upcoming Scaling Bitcoin workshop inward Milan.
The post service An Interview With ViaBTC, the New Bitcoin Mining Pool on the Blockchain appeared starting fourth dimension on Bitcoin Magazine.
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