Domestic enterprises need to speak out more: Bitmain CEO Jihan Wu talks about the Hong Kong roundtable meeting

Blockchain expansion is undoubtedly the most controversial and most watched topic in the community. At the expansion meeting of Hong Kong Cyberport on February 20, multiple parties coordinated and signed a consensus agreement. After that, some supported it, some questioned it, and some opposed it.

Within a few days of the Hong Kong Roundtable, the debate on the expansion consensus intensified. Some people also took more direct actions. Slush and KnCMiner came forward to support the 2MB expansion (Bitcoin Classic); F2Pool also opened the Classic mining address. F2Pool explained this move as follows: opening the Classic vote is mainly to open a channel for miners to express their opinions freely; at the same time, it puts pressure on Core to urge it to reach the Hong Kong consensus. In addition, Adam back personally explained to the community the reason why he signed the Hong Kong Roundtable Agreement in his personal capacity, and changed his personal identity to Blockstream President.

We interviewed several mining companies, exchanges, individuals or industry representatives who personally experienced the meeting to see what they thought of the results reached this time, how they view the doubts that followed, and what actions they will take next. Bitmain CEO Jihan Wu accepted our interview today and shared some of his views.

8btc: What do you think of the final result of this expansion meeting?

Wu Jihan: This expansion meeting was the result of a compromise. As a developer community, some leading developers in Core, such as Greg and Luke-Jr, firmly believe that we should not expand the block size and emphasize the risks of hard fork expansion. In the entire Bitcoin community, there are certainly people who agree with their views, but there are also many people who disagree with them. This disagreement has expanded to a certain extent. Many mining pools have begun to use the Classic program that competes with Core to mine. Antpool also began testing and running Classic in the production environment before attending the meeting. During the negotiation process, the mining pool also stated that if the hard fork code is not merged, the soft fork of segregated witness will not be run. The mining pool also believes that the Core community still has the strongest development capabilities . If Core is simply replaced without a strong replacement, it will seriously hinder the development of Bitcoin. The mining pool also understands the significance of the Lightning Network to the long-term development of Bitcoin. Both sides have been greatly restrained, and some emotional communication and exchanges have been reached on the path of Bitcoin's future expansion of 2-3 orders of magnitude, so a compromise has been reached.

The results of the meeting helped both parties stabilize their expectations until July: the Core community does not have to worry about Classic actually taking effect and snatching Core's dominance over the Bitcoin consensus protocol before July; community representatives who hope to obtain larger blocks through hard forks can also expect to see the hard fork code designed by Core recommended to the Core community for discussion in July, which means that the Core development community will invest time and attention in designing the hard fork route, and there will be firm representatives within Core to support hard fork expansion. With stable expectations, everyone can focus their main energy on constructive activities before July instead of spending all their energy on quarrels and debates.

The realization of the hard fork still requires further efforts from all parties. Only a few representatives from Core attended the meeting and agreed to the agreement reached at the meeting in their personal capacity. No one can make a definite promise whether the hard fork can be merged into the binary version of Core. We have noticed that F2Pool has opened a channel for customers to express their opinions independently (although the specific method is technically controversial), and mining pools such as KNC and Slush continue to run Classic. I believe that only by continuously exerting pressure and influence, and continuously showing the threat that the mining pool will immediately fully support Classic if the results of this meeting fail, can the Core community finally agree to the roadmap of this consensus.

8btc: Some people commented that this is a consensus reached by the core development layer and Chinese miners. Under the same framework, core and Chinese miners have each got what they need. What do you think of "each getting what they need"?

Jihan Wu: As answered above, Chinese miners have promoted the possibility of hard fork expansion, and the Core development community has gained certainty that Classic will not be able to seize the dominance of the consensus protocol before July.

8btc: At a recent event held by Haobit, you and Haobit CEO Wu Gang both mentioned that you want to train your own Bitcoin core developers. Is this plan currently in progress?

Jihan Wu: This is still in progress.

8btc: What do you think of some questioning comments? For example, the comment by Coinbase CEO is too-little-too-late, and the community forum believes that the reason why Adam signed as an individual is that other people in the company do not agree with the consensus, etc.

Wu Jihan: The CEO of Coinbase has been quite aggressive in supporting the 2MB expansion. He also advocates breaking the monopoly of the Core community on the development of the Bitcoin consensus protocol first. But relatively speaking, Chinese miners are more conservative. We can recognize that Core still has an absolute leading advantage in development. It is best to break the monopoly of Core after other more powerful competitors emerge.

Adam's personal signature issue: It is understandable that this is due to differences in Chinese and Western cultures, and it is also obviously due to the hasty preparation and the lack of time to obtain internal authorization. Adam could obviously do better, for example, he could explain this issue to everyone in person at the meeting.

8btc: What is the most direct impact of reaching this expansion consensus on Bitmain?

Wu Jihan: It’s hard to say. The discussion on capacity expansion is still ongoing.

8btc: As a leader among global mining companies, what development plans does Bitmain have after reaching the consensus on capacity expansion?

Jihan Wu: We will start to study the Lightning Network, analyze the impact of the Lightning Network on the long-term income of miners, and study high-speed payment networks based on blockchain technology, including the Lightning Network. The profit of the payment system is very considerable. For example, during the Chinese Spring Festival, a total of 32 billion red envelopes were distributed. If the network operating this type of payment system only charges 0.001 US dollars for each payment, there will be 32 million US dollars in revenue, and this is only the amount for the seven days of the Spring Festival. Miners need to get a share of the income from this type of payment business in order to effectively maintain the security of the Bitcoin network.

Discussions on the Hong Kong Roundtable on reaching a consensus on capacity expansion are still ongoing. The interview time and questions are limited. We are very grateful to Bitmain CEO Jihan Wu and Adam Back, BTCC COO Samson Mow for taking the time out of their busy schedules to jointly respond to more questions from community users. For more details, see the Hong Kong Roundtable AMA - Dialogue with Jihan Wu, Adam Back and Samson Mow.