Bitcoin News and Finance
What Is the Drivechain Proposal and Why Is It Dividing the Bitcoin Community? Skip to main content

What Is the Drivechain Proposal and Why Is It Dividing the Bitcoin Community?

What Is The Drivechain Proposal and Why It Is Splitting The Bitcoin Community?

Drivechain, a Bitcoin improvement proposal that presents a way of scaling Bitcoin using sidechains, level two blockchains that receive bridged tokens from a parent chain, is generating a loud buzz on social media from supporters and detractors. While Paul Sztorc, the author of the Drivechain proposal, states that its concept seeks to drive all innovation toward Bitcoin, some believe it might give rise to complexity and other unintended consequences.

What Is Drivechain?

Drivechain is the name of an improvement proposal (BIP 300) in development since 2018 that seeks to advance Bitcoin features without modifying its core design. Written and proposed by Layer Two Labs founder and CEO Paul Sztorc, the Drivechain implementation aims to scale Bitcoin through sidechains, adjacent blockchains that would be created and eliminated using Bitcoin code.

Drivechain has been purposefully written with minimal changes to the base layer in mind while still requiring a soft fork to be activated. The changes can be forked in and out if something is not going right, as Sztorc himself stated, “posing no risk to Bitcoin.”

Sidechains will be validated and supported by blind merged mining (BIP 301), which allows miners to use Bitcoin’s hash power to secure sidechains without running a full sidechain node. This includes the benefit of receiving fees in bitcoin.

The Drivechain implementation includes six new blockchain messages that manage the creation and destruction of sidechains, bridging funds from Bitcoin to sidechains, and vice-versa.

A Solution for Several Problems

One of the problems that Drivechain aims to solve, according to Sztorc, is the lack of innovation that Bitcoin has experienced since its creation, and also the dilution of efforts that it has suffered due to the difficulty of implementing changes in Bitcoin’s layer one, causing innovation to happen elsewhere.

This inability to change for innovation, presented by Storcz as a “heterogeneity” problem in one of his presentations, implies that core developers refuse to change Bitcoin due to various factors. Implementing Drivechain would ostensibly allow anyone to build permissionlessly on top of Bitcoin, bringing innovation and new features that can fail without compromising the base layer.

Scaling, one of the main issues Bitcoin faces compared to other chains, could also be addressed with Drivechain, allowing for constructing sidechains with bigger block sizes and onboarding users directly to these.

Also, the sidechains created would add value to the Bitcoin ecosystem, with coins like Monero and other tokens being built on top of Bitcoin and miners benefitting from collecting fees from all of these chains.

The Discussion

While Drivechain presents many benefits, the Bitcoin community is torn about the form of the proposal, with many being dismissive of the changes it might bring.

For example, Cory Klippsten, CEO of Swan.com, said that the approval of the Drivechain implementation might bring undesired activity to Bitcoin. He stated:

Having lots of scams on Bitcoin will make people and regulators (understandably) think that Bitcoin is full of scams.

Bitcoin enthusiast Hodlonaut called out the unintended consequences of the changes brought by the hypothetical implementation of Drivechain, stressing that “any small change to the code will have an exponential outcome in terms of risk” and that Bitcoin supporters should be “extremely careful and conservative … of the risks involved” with this modification.

However, some support Drivechain as part of increasing the network effect of Bitcoin. Fiatjaf, the creator of the decentralized social media protocol Nostr, stated:

If Drivechain is successful, it may end up bringing much more people to Bitcoin. Why would we want these people to come to Bitcoin? Because they will increase Bitcoin’s network-effect.

For Sztorc, the outcome is already clear: the Drivechain proposal is “inevitable” and will eventually be activated, as it pays fees to miners and allows for direct onboarding of funds to sidechains on top of Bitcoin.

What do you think about the Drivechain improvement proposal? Tell us in the comments section below.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Custodial Lightning Network Service Attack Discovered by LN ‘Newbie’ — Hacker Strikes 6 LN Custodians

On September 18, a Redditor posted to the r/bitcoin forum and explained how he discovered a way to “attack [the] lightning Network’s custodial services.” The Reddit account dubbed “Reckless Satoshi” wanted to figure out if a “discrepancy between real routing fees and service’s transaction fee can be exploited for a profit.” The researcher disclosed that he wanted to see how large the damage could be and said “it is bad.” 6 Lightning Network Custodial Services Attacked, Researcher Discloses Findings to Offenders Prior to Public Disclosure A Redditor called Reckless Satoshi published a disclosure post on r/bitcoin this past Saturday and disclosed how he had found a vulnerability with routing fees and some of the Lightning Network’s custodial services. The research attack was done in good faith and after it was complete he disclosed the bugs to the offending services before publishing his findings. Reckless Satoshi used the Lightning Network (LN) attack on six different services incl...
Post a Comment
Read more

Axie Infinity Down 40% Since Last Week’s Price High, Protocol Revenue Outshines Competitors

Last week, the game token leveraged within the Axie Infinity gaming universe skyrocketed to all-time highs, while other crypto markets remained extremely lackluster. During the last seven days, Axie Infinity’s platform token has dropped significantly in value shedding more than 12%. Meanwhile, the game platform’s smooth love potion token has slid over 8% over the last 24 hours. Axie Infinity Down More Than 40% Since All-Time High Not too long ago, the axie infinity (AXS) token was a topical conversation because it reached an all-time high on July 15. At the time, AXS managed to capture $28.93 per unit and since then it has shed 12.8% during the last seven days. The axie infinity (AXS) token is used within the blockchain-based game that involves battles between token-based creatures called “Axies.” AXS is used for the game’s governance system as well as other actions within the game. At the time of writing axie infinity (AXS) is exchanging hands for $16.70 per coin. AXS/USD on Ju...
Post a Comment
Read more

Play-to-Earn Game From Polker (PKR) Exchange Listing – Endorsed by Akon

The Play-to-Earn NFT based Polker.Game ‘s native token $PKR has been officially listed on the popular centralized exchange BitMart. Polker.game has been in the spotlight recently as Akon, the American R&B superstar and record producer gave his official endorsement of polker stating that the “game is revolutionary” and that Polker is “hands down.. the best play to earn, NFT game in the space.”. With the BitMart listing and celebrity endorsement from Akon, Polker is perfectly positioned to become a major player in the Play-to-Earn league. Watch Akon’s Video Here What is Play-to-Earn? Although not a new concept, play-to-earn has become a trending term due to the popularity of the NFT game AXIE infinity. In the past, previous play-to-earn games have also achieved success – however, thanks to the huge amount of development in the blockchain space in recent years the gaming experience is now massively improved. Play-to-Earn games are essentially free to play and open to anyone and...
Post a Comment
Read more

China to Crack Down on Copyright Infringement Through NFTs

Authorities in China are going after creators of digital collectibles based on other people’s works of art, the use of which was not authorized. The government offensive is part of a campaign to combat online copyright infringement and piracy with the participation of several departments. Regulators in China Move to Strengthen Copyright Supervision of Online Platforms The National Copyright Administration of China (NCAC) has recently launched a campaign against copyright infringement and piracy on the internet, together with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Public Security, and the State Internet Information Office of the People’s Republic. A major objective of the initiative is to improve copyright supervision of online businesses by investigating cases involving the sale and distribution of infringing products on short video, live broadcast and e-commerce platforms, and promptly dealing with infringing content, the agency announced in a press r...
Post a Comment
Read more
Blogarama - Blog Directory