Bitcoin Core launches social media platform

January 23, 2016 — Bitcoin Core launches social media accounts and a public Slack in order to communicate more directly with the Foundation. This follows a highly controversial proposal for a hashing algorithm overhaul that could make Bitcoin less accessible and change the utility of the entire specification.

Negative Response to DOA Hard Fork

Dashjr, an influential Bitcoin Core developer, proposed a hard fork on the 17th of this month that would transform Bitcoin to another PoW algorithm as an alternative to increasing the block size. The demand for these changes stems from the perception that mining hash power is becoming increasingly concentrated in China. The reform proposal was opposed within the company, but the idea was posted on Reddit, and Dashjr reconsidered the idea after being rejected. The Bitcoin Foundation responded tit for tat, expressing its anger and confusion about the proposal. The original hard fork instructions read:

“It solves the problem of mining centralization by making GPU mining cutting-edge again . (Hopefully the next generation of ASIC miners will learn from this lesson so we don’t have to repeat the same mistake.)”

Critics of the hard fork are pushing Dashjr to find a solution to the Chinese miners, regardless of cost and functionality. Whether the proposal is sincere or just to satisfy their own interests, the overwhelming negative response from developers and the Bitcoin Foundation makes the "proof-of-work" algorithm change even more hopeless; this fact may limit real safeguards in the future .

Bitcoin Core needs more public interfaces

As a result of this series of events and the subsequent media coverage, Bitcoin Core has learned to improve its public platform. As part of this initiative, they launched a Slack tool a few days ago and started providing Twitter services today. In the future, this may prevent it from causing controversy due to insignificant things - the lag between the public and developers will also be reduced.

It remains to be seen what impact these measures will have, but despite all the scandals and negative mainstream news coverage of Bitcoin recently, it is encouraging to see that those responsible for maintaining and improving Bitcoin are working hard to make it more transparent.