Weekly musing #16 - Preparing for Bitcoin network upgrade

Bitcoin ABC issues release 0.14.4

Release 0.14.4 has been issued by Bitcoin ABC this week.

With the fork nearing, minor fixes and improvements are still being made.

While the precise changes for the next version of Bitcoin ABC (0.14.5) are still not finalized, it is thought that it will further strengthen the replay protection, in particular to address concerns about replayability of legacy Bitcoin transactions on the UAHF fork chain.

A big thank you is deserved at this point to all Bitcoin users who have been supportive of the UAHF planned upgrade of network capacity.

I am encouraged by generous offers of support, with users offering their personal computing platforms to perform tests and builds.

With this sort of spirit of cooperation , Bitcoin ABC's future looks bright.

Bitcoin Unlimited prepares to issue UAHF-compatible release

A special BU edition intended to bring UAHF compatibility is nearing completion.

It looks like this is well on track for release prior to the fork date.

Classic, XT announce intention to issue UAHF versions

Both the Bitcoin Classic and Bitcoin XT project lead developers have announced that they will prepare Bitcoin Cash (UAHF) compatible releases.

While no firm dates have been given, it seems there is a good chance that these clients may be issuing releases prior to the fork, or at latest very shortly after.

Assuming they achieve their release goals, this would bring the total number of UAHF compatible clients so far up to four - more than originally anticipated.

Market support for Bitcoin Cash

This week, ViaBTC introduced support for trading and mining Bitcoin Cash (their symbol: BCC), which has triggered a cascade of market interest.

There are of course a lot of questions from Bitcoin holders who are finding out that on August 1 2017, at 12:20:00pm UTC, Bitcoin will split and they will own both BTC and BCC.

This will be a monumental event. Early trading figures on ViaBTC's platform suggest that there is keen interest, both from those looking to acquire Bitcoin Cash, and those wanting to make sure they are able to sell theirs.

It is almost certain that Bitcoin Cash, with its significant on-chain scaling potential and a huge community of pre-existing holders, will find adequate mining support to get off to a good start, and will finally answer the question whether the market wants to use Satoshi's invention without the artificially low block size limit of 1MB.

Exciting times for Bitcoin!