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Bitcoin Unlimited

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Bitcoin Unlimited
Developer(s)Andrew Stone
Initial releaseJanuary 2016
Preview release
1.0.1.1 / 14 March 2017; 7 years ago (2017-03-14)
Repositorygithub.com/BitcoinUnlimited/BitcoinUnlimited
Written inC++
PlatformWindows, Linux,
Mac OS X, ARM
TypeCryptocurrencies

Bitcoin Unlimited (BU) is a full node software client that is incompatible with the current bitcoin network. Compared to the Bitcoin Core client hard-coding the block size limit to 1 megabyte, from which it is forked, Bitcoin Unlimited removes the limit, allowing the users to determine the block size by consensus.[1][2][3]

The protocol used by Bitcoin Unlimited is administered by a formal process described in the Articles of Federation.[4] It follows the release of Bitcoin XT and Bitcoin Classic, alternative proposals which aimed to increase bitcoin's transaction capacity of around 2.5-3 transactions per second.[5]

Scalability

Bitcoin Unlimited is an attempt to upgrade Bitcoin Core into a client that processes bitcoin transactions into blocks with a potential maximum size greater than the Core's hard-coded limit of one megabyte.[1] Per the advocates of the change, a block size increase is needed in order to avoid a workflow bottleneck due to the number of transactions made as bitcoin adoption increases. BUIP001[6] documented the proposal and was drafted by lead developer Andrew Stone.[7]

With Bitcoin Unlimited, miners are independently able to configure the size of the blocks they will validate.[8] Maximum Generation Size, also referred to as MG is a new option which by default is set to one megabyte.[7] This allows the user to select the size of blocks they produce. Excessive Block Size, or EB, allows nodes to choose the size of the block they accept. By default this is set at 16 megabytes.[7] The third new option allows a user to select the Excessive Acceptance Depth, or AD. This implements a consensus strategy by retroactively accepting larger blocks if a majority of other miners have done so.[7]

Miners using Bitcoin Unlimited continue to process regular-sized blocks but as soon as a threshold in the number of nodes willing to process large blocks is signalled and once such a block is mined, those miners will do so and then append a large block to the blockchain.

"The eventual solution will be to not care how big it gets."

Satoshi Nakamoto

According to game theory the scalability solution will be found at a focal point. That is, the size limit of a block is expected to naturally emerge from the cumulative effect of thousands of node operators and miners expressing their preferences.[9]

It continues the transaction capacity increase method bitcoin used for much of its existence. Without any centralized direction, miners increased the block limit from 250kb to 500kb in March 2013[10] to the apparent opposition of Peter Todd and Luke-Jr. That was followed by an increase to 750kb and then finally to 1MB. With Bitcoin Unlimited, they can increase it in roughly the same manner to 2MB or 4MB in line with demand as well as the progress of technology.

Support

Bitcoin Unlimited follows the release of Bitcoin XT and Bitcoin Classic, alternative proposals on how to increase bitcoin's transaction capacity.[11] Bitcoin Unlimited is actively supported by Roger Ver. Mining pools including Antpool,[12] bitcoin.com,[13] BTC.TOP, GBMiners and ViaBTC use BU.[7] As of April 2017 around 5% of the nodes run BU.[14]

Opposition

Bitcoin Unlimited has received widespread opposition from across the Bitcoin community, including from exchanges and local user groups, who say they will reject BU even if miners adopt it. These include statments from Bitcoin user groups in Canada, Italy, Norway and the Philippines.[15][16][17][18][19][20][21]

BU is also criticized for the emerging consensus mechanism which could lead to an unwanted network split[22] with an unpredictable outcome.[23] Furthermore critics are worried about the small amount of BU developers and a lack of peer review of new code. A bug in BU caused Bitcoin.com to mine an invalid block on 2 February.[24] BU nodes were attacked after developers brought a bug to light on 14 March 2017. The numbers of nodes hosting Unlimited fell to about 300 from 800 following the attacks, the lowest level since October, and returned to about 800 within 24 hours according to website coin.dance which tracks network data.[25]

Governance

Bitcoin Unlimited seeks to centralize the software development process. The software's lead developer or maintainer is to be elected annually.[26] Elected positions exist for a president in charge of high level management and an elected secretary to deal with administrative issues.[26] The president of Bitcoin Unlimited is Andrew Clifford.[27] Peter Rizun is the Secretary of Bitcoin Unlimited.[28]

Bitcoin Unlimited has a number of developers including Peter Tschipper, Andrea Suisani, Andrew Stone, Tom Harding, Dagur Johannsson, Amaury Sèchet, Tom Zander, Jerry Chan and ftrader.[29]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Alyssa Hertig (25 September 2016). "A Controversial Bitcoin Alternative is Seeking a Comeback". CoinDesk. Retrieved 17 January 2017.
  2. ^ Bajpai, Prableen (26 October 2016). "What Is Bitcoin Unlimited?". Investopedia, LLC. Retrieved 8 November 2016.
  3. ^ bitfinex (8 April 2017). "Statement on Potential Bitcoin Hardfork Event". Bitfinex. Retrieved 8 April 2017.
  4. ^ "BitcoinUnlimited". GitHub, Inc. Retrieved 17 January 2017.
  5. ^ Hayes, Adam (18 October 2016). "The Three Major Bitcoin Protocols Explained". Investopedia. Retrieved 18 January 2017.
  6. ^ Stone, Andrew. "BUIP 001: Extensions to the Bitcoin Client". Bitcoin Forum. Retrieved 6 February 2017.
  7. ^ a b c d e Aaron van Wirdum (25 January 2017). "A Closer Look at Bitcoin Unlimited's Configurable Block Size Proposal". Bitcoin Magazine. BTC Inc. Retrieved 6 February 2017.
  8. ^ Jordan Pearson (14 October 2016). "'Bitcoin Unlimited' Hopes to Save Bitcoin from Itself". Motherboard. Vice Media LLC. Retrieved 17 January 2017.
  9. ^ Peter Rizun (23 November 2016). "The Excessive-Block Gate: How a Bitcoin Unlimited Node Deals With "Large" Blocks". Medium. Retrieved 18 January 2017.
  10. ^ https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/almost-1-billion-worth-bitcoins-stuck-transaction-backlog/
  11. ^ Vigna, Paul (17 January 2016). "Is Bitcoin Breaking Up?". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 8 November 2016.
  12. ^ Nakamura, Yuji; Chen, Lulu Yilun (13 March 2017). "Bitcoin Miners Signal Revolt in Push to Fix Sluggish Blockchain". BloombergTechnology. Retrieved 13 March 2017.
  13. ^ Andrew Quentson (18 January 2017). "Is Bitcoin Unlimited Headed for Activation?". cryptocoin news. Retrieved 6 February 2017.
  14. ^ "Bitnodes". BitNodes. Retrieved 6 April 2017.
  15. ^ bitfinex (19 April 2017). "Statement on Potential Bitcoin Hardfork Event". Bitfinex. Retrieved 19 April 2017.
  16. ^ Poloniex (8 April 2017). "OUR POSITION ON THE POSSIBLE HARD FORK". poloniex. Retrieved 8 April 2017.
  17. ^ coins.ph (19 April 2017). "How Coins.ph will handle a Bitcoin Fork". coins.ph. Retrieved 19 April 2017.
  18. ^ hackernoon (8 April 2017). "Canadian Bitcoin Economic Nodes Unite Against Bitcoin Unlimited and Propose Industry Guidelines for Hard Forks". hackernoon. Retrieved 8 April 2017.
  19. ^ medium.com (8 April 2017). "BHB official statement on proposed "Emergent Consensus" hard fork". medium.com. Retrieved 6 April 2017.
  20. ^ medium.com (12 April 2017). "Statement on Potential Bitcoin Hardfork Event". bitmynt.nom. Retrieved 14 April 2017.
  21. ^ BitGo (19 April 2017). "bitgos-approach-to-handling-a-hard-fork". BitGo. Retrieved 8 April 2017.
  22. ^ van Wirdum, Aaron (28 January 2017). "How Bitcoin Unlimited Users May End Up on Different Blockchains". Coindesk. Coindesk. Retrieved 6 March 2017.
  23. ^ Hertig, Alyssa (29 October 2016). "Bitcoin's Block Size Debate is Back (And It Might Be Worse Than Ever)". CoinDesk. Retrieved 18 January 2017.
  24. ^ Bergmann, Christoph (3 February 2017). "Why Roger Ver's Mining Pool Lost 12.5 BTC because of a Bug in Bitcoin Unlimited". Btcmanager. Retrieved 6 March 2017.
  25. ^ Nakamura, Yuji (15 March 2017). "Divisive 'Bitcoin Unlimited' Solution Crashes After Bug Discovered". Bloomberg. Retrieved 15 March 2017.
  26. ^ a b Aaron van Wirdum (13 January 2016). "Unlimited, Classic and 'BitPay Core': Bitcoin's New Kids on the Blockchain". Bitcoin Magazine. BTC Inc. Retrieved 18 January 2017.
  27. ^ Alyssa Hertig (25 September 2016). "A Controversial Bitcoin Alternative is Seeking a Comeback". CoinDesk. Retrieved 6 February 2017.
  28. ^ https://bitco.in/forum/threads/voting-is-closed-for-secretary.1505/#post-29343
  29. ^ https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/price-shoots-bitcoin-unlimited-surpasses-segwit/
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