BUIP059: Make "sticky gate" optional (disabled by default)
Proposer: freetrader
Submitted on: 2017-05-21
Status: draft
BUIP038 proposed to revert the “sticky gate”, a proposal which was
perhaps seen as too extreme and risky (see counterproposal BUIP041).
This BUIP proposes to make the “sticky gate” an optional feature,
disabled by default, but allowing users to keep compatibility with the
current software by enabling it.
The “sticky gate” has been the subject of much debate and criticism, as
it has featured prominently in the theorized “median attack strategy”
described by BU’s critics [1].
I would like to make this feature optional to give Bitcoin Unlimited
users the means to negate the efficiency of the proposed automated
attack, and thereby help to defuse criticism that BU’s implementation of
Emergent Consensus is somehow unduly risky.
Conceptually as per BUIP038’s original PR [2], except with addition of
a governing boolean configuration option, ‘stickygate’, which shall
default to ‘false’ (disabled).
When the configuration option is set to ‘true’ (enabled), the software
shall behave as it currently does (as of release 1.0.2.0) with regards
to the sticky gate processing.
[1]
https://np.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/5ykr57/the_median_eb_attack_against_bu_explained_im/
[2] https://github.com/BitcoinUnlimited/BitcoinUnlimited/pull/169