Founder of World’s Largest Bitcoin Mining Equipment Firm Criticizes Core and Segwit
Recently, Jihan Wu, the co-founder of Bitmain, a mining equipment manufacturer which supplies 70% of the world’s miners, criticized Bitcoin Core for their leadership and its solutions including Segregated Witness (Segwit).
Over the past few months, the bitcoin community has split into two support groups: Bitcoin Core or Segwit against Bitcoin Unlimited.
Supporters of Bitcoin Core including Blockchain, the world’s largest bitcoin wallet platform, Coinbase, BTCC and other businesses are emphasizing security and the introduction of two-layer solutions as their core arguments while supporters of Bitcoin Unlimited including Wu have used Bitcoin Core’s poor roadmap and leadership as their justification towards building a hard fork solution.
One interesting trend which has been evident in these arguments and the debate between the two bitcoin support groups is that an increasing number of businesses including Blockchain and Coinbase are supporting the activation of Segwit and Bitcoin Core while miners, particularly mining pools and operators in China, are supporting Bitcoin Unlimited.
This trend is important to consider as Bitcoin Unlimited has emphasized time and time again that Segwit’s inefficiency as a scaling solution makes it difficult for bitcoin companies to operate. As seen in prominent bitcoin investor Roger Ver’s statement:
“Anyone who runs a business using Bitcoin knows that the network is in serious trouble due to congestion.”
However, if two of the largest companies within the global bitcoin industry in Coinbase and Blockchain are in support for Segwit, the argument of Bitcoin Unlimited supports that the Bitcoin network is in need of Bitcoin Unlimited for the benefit of businesses can’t be justified.
What instead can be said for Bitcoin Unlimited is that if such a large number of miners and mining pools are in support for a hard fork, it is likely that the execution of a Bitcoin Unlimited hard fork could allow miners to maximize and optimize their operations, which play a large factor in securing the Bitcoin network and its transactions.
Bitmain co-founder Wu believes Bitcoin Unlimited is a better long-term solution in contrast to Segwit. Wu stated that the security risks of hard forks are being unnecessarily overthought by the community as a hard fork was executed in the past and it didn’t lead to disastrous problems.
Although Wu’s statement can be considered as a rational viewpoint since hard fork was indeed executed before, the developmental ecosystem of bitcoin and the network’s technological state is much different from what it was before. Thus, the fact that a bitcoin hard fork was executed years before can’t be used as the basis to predict the outcome of the next bitcoin hard fork.
Wu further noted:
“[Bitcoin] Core exists as dictatorship and tyranny, upholding speech control, colluding to attack people with different views, has become the biggest threat of the long-term development of bitcoin.”
Wu’s statement is similar to that of Ver’s comments on the Crypto Show which hosted a debate between bitcoin consultant and podcaster Tone Vays and Ver. On the show, Ver explained , “I’d like to quote Satoshi Nakamoto and in his own words in a public forum for everyone to see in 2010, he says that the ultimate solution is to allow blocks to get as big as they need to get and that is the bitcoin i signed up for and that is the bitcoin all of the early adopters signed up for.”
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