Is It Too Late for Barry Silbert's Scaling Compromise Proposal?

According to a few public announcements, the Digital Currency Group’s founder Barry Silbert is trying to plan a scaling compromise that involves both Segregated Witness (Segwit) implementation and a block size increase of 2MB within the next twelve months.

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DCG Founder Barry Silbert Sparks Another Compromise Discussion

As the scaling debate continues, many bitcoin proponents are at odds trying to figure out the best solution at hand to scale the digital currency. On May 17 the founder and CEO of the Digital Currency Group (DCG), Barry Silbert, announced he was in favor of supporting immediate Segwit activation and a block size increase.

“I agree to immediately support the activation of Segregated Witness and commit to effectuate a block size increase to 2MB within 12 months,” explains Silbert.

Following the proclamation, Silbert announces that he’s also convinced a multitude of bitcoin businesses to agree with his latest statement. Silbert states via Twitter;

I’m pleased to share that over 50 bitcoin companies from ~20 countries have also signed on to support this compromise

Silbert Claims 78% of the Bitcoin Hashrate Supports His Compromise Proposal

The public statements caused a stir among members of the bitcoin community on both sides speaking about the topic on various social media channels and forums. Alongside this, a few luminaries and bitcoin-focused business owners from the industry also spoke in favor of Silbert’s statement.

“Myself and Shapeshift are among them—I cannot endorse this strongly enough,” exclaims the Shapeshift founder Erik Voorhees. Other members of the industry supported the statement like the co-founder of Satoshi Labs, Chandler Guo, and others.

To add more power to his words in addition to the fifty bitcoin companies agreeing with the DCG founder’s proclamation, Silbert details that miners are also onboard with his plan. A few hours later on May 17 Silbert announces;

We are now at 78.3% of the bitcoin hashrate in support of the scaling compromise

Compromise Discussion Causes Some Optimism, Stubbornness, and Confusion

Many bitcoiners were relatively positive about Silbert’s efforts as talks of compromise has become more prevalent these days with the most recent transaction congestion taking place. Others from both sides of the debate completely dismissed the notion of a compromise. Some individuals said that people just need to concentrate on the User-Activated Soft Fork (UASF) instead of these meaningless talks. Meanwhile, big block supporters disagreed with an immediate activation of Segwit as they believed the other end of the deal would still not be fulfilled.

I believe they mean two scale steps, deploy current seg-wit, then work towards a further scale improvement. many options for how. — Adam Back (@adam3us) May 17, 2017

Another thing people discussed was the confusion between which Segwit plus 2MB plan was agreed upon. People have been confused on whether or not the plan was a rehash of the Hong Kong agreement in the past, or if the scheme involved Sergio De Lerner’s recent Segwit/2MB proposal.

If @barrysilbert is serious, he should be talking about a UASF – he claims to have enough support to get even BIP148 implemented smoothly. — Peter Todd (@petertoddbtc) May 18, 2017

Another Scaling Meeting Between Major Players

To add to the recent attempt at compromise a scaling meeting between members of the bitcoin industry is taking place before the Consensus conference in New York next week. According to Coindesk, a news publication owned by Silbert’s DCG firm, a private mailing list was set up to bolster a meeting between “major players” within the bitcoin ecosystem. Members asked to attend include Adam Back (Blockstream), Jeff Garzik (Bloq), Val Vavilov (Bitfury), Roger Ver (Bitcoin.com), Brian Armstrong (Coinbase), Jihan Wu (Bitmain), Stephen Pair (Bitpay), and others.

What do you think about Silbert’s attempt to create a scaling compromise? Do you think his efforts will help or do you think it’s just a waste of time? Let us know what you think in the comments below

Images via Shutterstock, and Twitter.

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