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F2Pool, BitFury, BTCChina, KnCMiner and 21 have cast their votes for Garzik’s proposal.

The bitcoin block size debate might come to a climax as a front runner has emerged in the Coinbase Size vote. With KnCMiner and 21 joining three other major bitcoin pools – F2Pool, BitFury, and BTCChina – the Jeff Garzik’s Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP1 00) now has more than 60% of the network’s hashrate.

21 Inc. had initially supported the 8 Mb proposal but switched to BIP100 on 28 August. The top secret company did not provide any comments on the decision.  KnCMiner who now also votes BIP 100 over 8Mb clarified their position on Twitter:

“We support bigger blocks and like both BIP 100 and BIP 101 – we believe either of those two avenues would propel Bitcoin for all.”

The company previously stated it would agree with a consensus/supermajority decision.

BTCChina offered an ample and well-reasonable statement on the matter. The company argues that combining the functions of bitcoin exchange, wallet, and mining pool gives it “a unique position to see the debate from several angles”. BTCChina still believes that a block size of 8 MB is a good goal however it presents certain difficulties at the moment:

“Through operating one of the largest mining pools, BTCChina has experienced firsthand the problems of high orphan rates and the related risks of the blockchain forking. Our perspective is that the Internet today, in China and also globally, is not yet ready for unrestrained, automatic increases of the block size. A global network of bitcoin miners and mining pools requires tremendous levels of network connectivity to relay large blocks around the world in a timely manner. If block sizes get too big, too fast, orphan rates will certainly increase, disadvantaging smaller miners and mining pools.”

If BIP100 is adapted company will vote for 2 Mb limit increasing to 8 Mb in a med-term. This low-key approach will address the problem of scalability while allowing enough time to study the effects of increased block size on the network, BTCChina believes.

BitFury who kept silent about the debate until recently tagged the bitcoin block 371604 in favour of BIP100 on 26 August. 

"We think that the block size debate must be resolved by consensus and the voting mechanism introduced in BIP 100 is a good way to achieve such a consensus ... The power to make such future defining decisions must belong to the community," BitFury CEO Valery Vavilov explained to CoinDesk.

BIP 100 implies that the block size limit changes every 3 months based on bitcoin miners voting with every block they mine however it may not exceed 32Mb. Gavin Andresen’s BIP 101 specify the block size will be increased to 8 Mb on 11 January, 2016 and will be doubled every two year. Miners who welcome an idea of larger blocks but have no preferences for BIP 100 over BIP 101 or vice versa could cast their votes for 8 Mb.

Earlier this week BitPay, Blockchain.info, Circle, Kncminer, Bitnet, Xapo, BitGo and ItBit signed an open letter in support of BIP101. While it qualifies the debate about bitcoin as “healthy”, it states that after a lengthy consideration the companies have decided to support of Gavin Andresen’s proposal. These companies will be ready for larger blocks by December 2015 and they will support the implementation of BIP101. 

 

Nadya Krasnushkina