Rumors are spreading: Worried that Bitcoin Core will violate the Hong Kong consensus, the mining community may spontaneously implement a 2MB expansion hard fork?

Recently, the issue of block expansion has been pushed to the forefront again. A large number of Bitcoin developers, including Blockstream CTO Gregory Maxwell and core developer Mark Friedenbach, have publicly questioned the consensus reached at the Hong Kong Roundtable (the Hong Kong consensus is known as the most important official document in the history of Bitcoin since the white paper).

It is reported that mining pools and miners representing 75% of the total network computing power have reached a consensus that if Bitcoin Core developers have not released a client with a 2MB expansion hard fork code before August 1 this year, they will spontaneously execute the 2MB expansion fork.

The above information has not been verified. However, what we know now is that at least three Bitcoin Core developers have confirmed that the hard fork will not be written into the client, so miners have taken action.

An article published by HaoBtc on Reddit further confirmed that the community was ready to move. HaoBtc has always been a die-hard fan of Bitcoin Core, but two days ago, it published an article asking the Core development team to express their position on the 2MB block size fork.

HaoBtc firmly stands on the side of miners in the article:

The hard fork to 2MB mentioned in the Hong Kong Consensus is undoubtedly very important. If the community did not pay enough attention to it, there would be no specific code release time. ' The hard fork code will take effect in July 2016. 'Now it is July, and miners are worried whether Core developers can fulfill their promises, or whether they have made efforts for this in the past few months.

Even the die-hard fans of Core, HaoBtc and BTCC, couldn’t sit still. BTCC COO Miao Yongquan said on Twitter:

HaoBtc and BTCC’s public statements have confirmed this rumor to some extent. In any case, the price of Bitcoin did rise by $40 when the rumor was rife (the price of Bitcoin was about $680 at press time, and yesterday the price of Bitcoin has been hovering around $640).

The Hong Kong Roundtable expansion consensus is an important consensus reached by Chinese miners who account for 70% of the total network computing power and Bitcoin core developers. The consensus includes that Core agrees to incorporate the hard fork to 2MB into the core framework, and will also run the Segregated Witness (SegWit) code at that time. The specific time of the release of the Segregated Witness code is April 2016, and the code is scheduled to take effect in July 2016.

To prove the importance of HaoBtc in the conference, Bitmain founder Jihan Wu also posted a tweet:

This rumor about the internal meeting of miners is half true and half false, because the recent statements of community miners, especially Wu Jihan’s public statements have become more and more direct, suggesting that there will be a turmoil in the mining community.

Another influential figure in the mining community is F2Pool founder Wang Chun (Shenyu), who has publicly stated that he felt deceived by Blockstream President Adam Back because Back only signed the Hong Kong Consensus in his own name, not in the name of Blockstream President, which gave miners the wrong hint that at least the Blockstream founder could guarantee the authority of the Hong Kong Consensus. Therefore, if Core does not release a hard fork client, Shenyu is likely to stand up and support the mining community to hard fork itself.

In any case, it is better to act quickly than to drag on. Whether to fork or not, the Bitcoin community should make a decision as soon as possible so that we can focus on the future development of the community instead of wasting energy on this never-ending debate.