Gavin Andresen: I might take over Bitcoin XT development

As Bitcoin XT lead developer Mike Hearn Hearn announced that he would join private blockchain startup R3, former Bitcoin Core lead developer Gavin Andresen recently said reluctantly that he might take over as lead developer of Bitcoin XT.

Andresen, who has been struggling to promote Bitcoin XT, told Bitcoin Magazine earlier this year:

“I could take over as lead developer of Bitcoin XT, but I don’t really want to do it.”

Last week, Hearn announced that he had joined R3 as the platform's chief platform engineer. The former Google engineer and Bitcoin XT lead developer will work with some of the world's largest banks to build a distributed ledger-based protocol for global financial markets. Hearn confirmed to Bitcoin Magazine that he will do the minimum work required to keep Bitcoin XT running, but will no longer actively develop or advocate for the Bitcoin XT implementation.

Hearn, who was previously a staunch supporter of Bitcoin block expansion, hopes to implement BIP 101 (Bitcoin Improvement Proposal) into Bitcoin XT so that the Bitcoin network can carry more transactions. The BIP 101 patch was designed by Andresen. According to the rules, if 75% of the 1,000 consecutive new blocks choose to vote for BIP 101, Bitcoin XT will start block expansion, and the initial upper limit will be set at 8MB. Once activated, this limit will double every two years, reaching a maximum of 8GB.

On Reddit, Hearn elaborated:

I'll continue to develop to keep XT working, and maybe make a merge patch from time to time if someone wants one (or just a BIP 101 patch).

The Bitcoin community needs to show the blockchain the promise it relies on today. I suspect things will start to happen after the December conference, as every big shot I’ve spoken to is hugely disappointed with how Bitcoin is going, but given their current behavior, Blockstream will announce another conference, and then they’ll keep waiting for something else.

The implementation of BIP 101 in Bitcoin XT is considered controversial, especially in the Bitcoin development community, because it has not gained industry-wide consensus. However, after Hearn implemented the patch, some well-known Bitcoin companies publicly stated that they intend to upgrade their code to support BIP 101 in December this year. Therefore, Hearn's departure may be unfortunate for those supporters of rapid block expansion. Even if the Bitcoin industry may still adopt Bitcoin XT, there is currently a lack of active development work.

Therefore, whether Bitcoin XT can continue to exist may depend on whether Andresen will take over as the lead developer, which Hearn also acknowledged. Andresen, who currently works at the MIT Media Lab, explained:

“I could take over as lead developer of Bitcoin XT, but I don’t want to. I stepped down from the lead developer position of Bitcoin Core because I was tired of leading an active open source software project, which requires constant micro-decision making. I want to use my time to think, to think about bigger, longer-term questions like: ‘What are the benefits and risks of increasing the block size limit?’”

Currently, BIP 101 itself has only a small amount of support in the Bitcoin developer community, and it seems unlikely that it will be implemented in Bitcoin Core. Despite this, Andresen still hopes that BIP 101 can be adopted.

“It will depend on what comes out of the Hong Kong meeting,” Andresen explained. “If the other developers can’t come up with something and reach consensus on a solution, then we’re going to have a chaotic, possibly chaotic few months where companies and big mining pools or miners are going to have to make choices until a solution emerges. In that case, though, I really expect that the most likely solution will be BIP 101 because it’s the only well-tested code out there that people can download and run.”

Original article: https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/gavin-andresen-i-might-take-over-lead-of-bitcoin-xt-1448486445
By Aaron van Wirdum
Compiled by: Satuoxi
Editor: Satuoxi
Source (translation): Babbitt Information