Veteran developer believes that Bitcoin Core will fail

Within the framework of an increasing debate on the modifications in Bitcoin Core, on May 14, in an event held by Pubkey, a Bitcoin -focused platform (BTC), Eric Voskuil, a veteran developer of the Bitcoiner ecosystem, expressed a criticism about the future of that software, ensuring that “the SATOSHI client will fail.”

Voskuil, known for his work in Libbitcoin, an open source bitcoin library, bases his questions on an alleged Centralization of development in Core, as well as questions some specific functions of that client (Assume Utxo and Assume Valid), pointing out that they would affect network safety.

Voskuil’s critical vision about Bitcoin Core

Eric Voskuil argues that Bitcoin Core is not sustainable in the long term. His argument is based on the perception that the development of that software would be centralized, controlled by a small group of developers. As expressed by Voskuil, this centralization Limit the diversity and resilience of the ecosystemwhich would represent a risk to the decentralization of Bitcoin, one of its fundamental principles.

Apart from Voskuil’s considerations, at the time of this writing the development of Bitcoin Core, open source, has 99 recent or active contributors with hundreds or thousands of COMMITS contributed by each one of themwhich could contradict the argument of a centralized scheme.

A commit It is a change or set of changes made in the source code of the repository of software. Each commit It represents a logical unit of work, which may include the addition, modification or elimination of lines of code, together with a descriptive message that explains what was changed and why.

Criticism of Specific Functions of Core

Another of Voskuil’s criticism is directed to the function Assume Utxoa proposal in Bitcoin Core that allows nodes assume the validity of certain blocks without completely validating them. According to him, this characteristic undermines the decentralization and safety of the network by prioritizing the convenience of integrity.

Assume Utxo It seeks to accelerate the process of synchronization of new nodes, allowing them to operate more quickly, not requiring a complete validation from the Genesis block. However, Voskuil considers this would violate the principles of complete validationthat they would be fundamental to ensure that each node verifies independently all transactions.

Along the same lines, this developer questions the function toSSUME VALID. Consider that the implementation of that tool in Bitcoin Core It is a step towards centralizationsince it allows the nodes to trust certain blocks without completely verifying them, which could undermine confidence in the network.

When Voskuil says “We keep trying to large blocks without validating, and that is a problem”suggests that Bitcoin Core prioritizes efficiency and scalability at the expense of complete validation by the nodes. In the context of ASSUME VALIDHe sees this characteristic as an attempt to handle larger blocks (or more data) without subjecting them to complete scrutiny.

Despite Eric Voskuil’s criticism Assume Utxo and Assume Valid For allegedly undermining decentralization, these functions contain risk mitigation mechanisms, such as validation in the background and the verification of critical elements, such as the work test (Pow) and the UTXO set (unbound transaction outputs), which suggests the network to remain robust.

In addition, complete validation is not an indispensable requirement for all nodes of the network, which allows the participation of light nodes, such as those used by many wallets (a function present from the origins of Bitcoin). These nodes, which do not discharge or validate the entire blockchain, can operate with less resources without compromising the possibility of interacting with the network, thus contributing to the decentralization of the ecosystem.

The Failure of the customer Satoshi, Voskuil’s gaze

Voskuil was encouraged to predict Bitcoin Core’s failure because I would not address properlyaccording to your analysis, challenges such as the increase in size of the archive of that network and the need for greater privacy in transactions.

The discussion about the Bitcoin file size is not new. In 2017, the well -known “block war” reached its critical point, a conflict that implied a deep disagreement on how to climb the network.

A sector proposed Segwit, an update that optimized the use of block space without increasing its size, and lightning network (LN), a second layer solution (L2) outside the chain. Another group advocated directly increasing block size to process more transactions.

In the absence of consensus, Bitcoin Cash (BCH) was born, a bitcoin bifurcation with larger blocks, which currently has little use compared to Bitcoin, demonstrating that at least at that time (and now) it may not be necessary to increase the size of the blocks.

Voskuil claims more privacy

Despite Eric Voskuil’s criticism about lack of privacy attention in Bitcoin Core, it is not true that the client ignores this aspect.

Bitcoin Core has integrated measures to favor privacysuch as Lightning Network itself, whose developers are part of the Core team, and Taproot, an update that Mascara Complex transactions to look standard, protecting the identity of the users.

In this sense, Eric states that Taproot, although useful, does not attack what he himself points as fundamental privacy problems, such as the traceability of the addresses and the correlation of transactions through the network.

The importance of competition between customers

Voskuil has focused its efforts on Libbitcoin, an open source library based on C ++ programming language. According to him, Libbitcoin prioritizes privacy, scalability and resistance to censorshipcharacteristics that consider crucial for the future of the network.

Nevertheless, Libbitcoin is not a complete customer as Bitcoin Corebut a library that allows other developers to create applications and nodes compatible with Bitcoin. Its purpose is to provide tools for community can diversify developmentreducing the dependence of a single software. For Voskuil, Bitcoin Core’s dominance is dangerous because it concentrates too much power in a single team, which could be exploited or manipulated.

In such a way, Voskuil also emphasizes The need for greater competition Among different bitcoin software, avoiding what he considers as a current monopolization of development.

At present, although Bitcoin Core continues to dominate the landscape of active nodes in Bitcoin, with more than 90% of the 22,064 operating nodes that use this client, the competition intended by Voskuil is growing.

And, that hegemony of Core is being challenged by the recent migration of nodes to alternatives such as Bitcoin Knots, which already holds almost 9% of the total of nodes, as Cryptonotics indicated.