As I explained in a Take two weeks ago, I think the threat (or promise, depending on your perspective) of protocol ossification is somewhat overblown, at least at this point.
Yes, the rate of soft forks has slowed down significantly over the years, the last being Taproot in 2021. But it seems this has more to do with a lack of interest in potential updates that have been proposed since then, more than with the lack of interest in the possible updates that have been proposed since then. that due to the lack of a good process for implementing protocol updates. (Although that’s not exactly a solved problem either.)
Bitcoin Core developers are generally funded with no strings attached or are volunteers, meaning they are not required to work on any specific part of the codebase. As such, their time and energy will be devoted to what they find most interesting or important to work on. Until now, that hasn’t really been any of the soft fork proposals: the various pact style opcodes are not unequivocally perceived as offering the type of innovative use cases that deserve prioritization, and while Transmission chains It sounds great in theory, its main disadvantage remains that miners can ultimately steal coins from you.
But even if Bitcoin Core developers aren’t interested, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to upgrade Bitcoin. For better or worse, anyone with the right skills (certainly not a very low bar) can always implement a soft fork via an alternative client, even as a user-activated soft fork (UASF). However, despite some rumors from time to time, no one has done so yet.
I suspect this is, at least in part, because proponents of these soft forks are not convinced that a UASF is truly successful. And if a UASF were unsuccessful, it may not be worth doing the upgrade in the first place…
This article is a Carry. The opinions expressed are entirely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
