The information acquired buried partly attributable to Trump’s inauguration and subsequent rumblings of a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve (SBR), however developer b10c not too long ago printed research exhibiting that F2Pool — a mining pool representing ~11% of hash energy on the Bitcoin community — is censoring OFAC-sanctioned transactions… again.
In case you don’t know what this implies: the US Division of the Treasury’s Workplace of International Asset Management (OFAC) maintains an inventory of sanctioned entities, together with quite a few Bitcoin addresses; it’s unlawful to do enterprise with these entities beneath US regulation. It’s truly unclear if this implies miners can’t embrace transactions to and from these addresses in blocks they produce — however F2Pool seems to be somewhat secure than sorry.
Now, so long as it’s simply F2Pool making use of this coverage, this isn’t actually a difficulty. Some transactions might be delayed by about ten minutes or so, every so often, however that’s about it.
If extra swimming pools begin doing it, the delays will get longer and extra frequent — however nonetheless not horrible. Not even when it’s a majority of swimming pools.
The true problem will come up if a majority of mining swimming pools not solely censors transactions, but in addition refuses to construct on prime of blocks that do embrace these transactions. If this have been to occur, these transactions wouldn’t affirm in any respect anymore… not for so long as these mining swimming pools stay a majority. Bitcoin would not be censorship-resistant.
I can’t actually fault F2Pool for adopting their coverage. Though I’d a lot desire it if no mining swimming pools censor, we sadly dwell in a world the place even open supply software program builders may face prison time for enabling customers to transact freely.
Relatively than flirting with an SBR, it might be nice if the brand new Trump administration first simply stopped such state assaults on Bitcoin.
This text is a Take. Opinions expressed are completely the writer’s and don’t essentially mirror these of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Journal.