As I defined in a Take two weeks in the past, I believe the menace (or promise, relying in your perspective) of protocol ossification is considerably exaggerated, not less than at this time limit.
Sure, the speed of sentimental forks has slowed down considerably through the years, the final one having been Taproot in 2021. Nevertheless it appears this has extra to do with a scarcity of curiosity within the potential upgrades that’ve been proposed since then, relatively than it being as a result of lack of a superb course of for deploying protocol upgrades. (Though that’s not precisely a solved drawback both.)
Bitcoin Core builders are usually funded on a no-strings-attached foundation or outright volunteers, which means they’re not required to work on any particular a part of the codebase. As such, their time and power can be devoted to no matter they discover most attention-grabbing or essential to work on. To date, that hasn’t actually been any of the tender fork proposals: the assorted covenant-style opcodes aren’t unequivocally perceived to supply the kind of groundbreaking use circumstances that deserve prioritization, and whereas Drivechains sound nice in concept, their main draw back continues to be that miners can finally steal cash from them.
However even when Bitcoin Core builders aren’t , that doesn’t imply it’s unimaginable to improve Bitcoin. For higher or worse, anybody with the proper skillset (admittedly not a really low bar) can all the time deploy a tender fork by means of an alternate shopper, at the same time as a person activated tender fork (UASF). But, regardless of some rumblings every so often, nobody has performed this but.
I think that is not less than partly as a result of the proponents of those tender forks aren’t satisfied a UASF would really achieve success. And if a UASF wouldn’t achieve success, perhaps the improve shouldn’t be price doing within the first place…
This text is a Take. Opinions expressed are fully the writer’s and don’t essentially replicate these of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Journal.