Bitcoin, Exemplar of A Democratic Economy
In the wee morning hours of 9th November 2017, news that the impending Bitcoin SegWig2x ‘hard fork’ that was slotted for the 16th November… has been CANCELLED.
This decision – almost unimaginable just hours before, actually happened and to the crypto currency community from all over the world, it is nothing less of a momentous moment in Bitcoin history.
Why?
Simply because the decision to cancel SegWig2x hardfork – taking into consideration all the technical debates and initial political division in the Bitcoin community due to the New York Agreement … all of it finally lead to victory for majority consensus.
This, is how true democracy should be.
Bitcoin is based on a decentralized ledger system is only possible due to a consensus algorithm (such as its Proof of Work or PoW), to ensure that the financial value system that it supports cannot be derailed by hackers or criminals.
*Note: Bitcoin’s market capitalization is currently about USD123 billion, making it over 50% of the entire cryptocurrencies market capitalization of about USD200 billion.
Earlier, the Bitcoin world has had already been partly ‘shaken’ by the two forks (into Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Gold) this year alone. The SegWig2x hard fork on 16th November would be the third and most contentious splitting of the Bitcoin’s blockchain – which many would bring about uncertain repercussions to the value and stability of this digital asset.
The fact that the cancellation of SegWig2x was decided by the core (mining) advocates of the New York Agreement, it shows that the mining group, decided to put their profitability interests aside for the collective benefit of the Bitcoin network.
No doubt that with this cancellation, it means that there is still the unresolved scalability issue of the Bitcoin’s blockchain being limited to 1MB.
However more important than bulldozing through a unclear action to hardfork split Bitcoin, the miner community (despite their majority vote) took a step back to consider the other risks put forth by the Bitcoin developers and users.
By conceding and deciding to cancel SegWig2x, the Bitcoin community heaves a sigh of relief as it provides a much-needed stability to the Bitcoin currency – especially now that it’s undergoing its biggest price soar in history, sometimes giving a jittery feeling of a bubble even amongst hardcore financial libertarians and rebels.
The cancellation of SegWig2x, is evidence that the Bitcoin community displays a level of maturity and respect for consensus – much more than many governments in the world.
In a very short time, Bitcoin has proved itself to be worthy to lead the world into a having a ubiquitous, digitized currency (or asset, or securities, or commodity depending how you want to call it) system.
But it is also the Bitcoin community’s collective respect for consensus that proves that it can take on the gargantuan role of being the medium to achieve the utopia of a Democratic World Economy.
Indeed, there will be very exciting times in the months ahead as Bitcoin develops to revolutionize the world’s economy.
By TTLee, Enterprise TV (Malaysia)
