Bitcoin Cash Developers Discuss Hot Topic ‘Pre-Consensus’

Recently, Amaury Séchet, the lead developer of the Bitcoin ABC client, published a paper via Yours.org on a protocol technique that would allow participants of the blockchain network to agree on how large the next block size would be.

Called "On markets and pre-consensus," the idea has been discussed before by other developers in the Bitcoin realm.

Séchet has been promoting the idea of pre-consensus well before the development of Bitcoin Cash.

He thinks that if it is done properly it would provide with a strong 0-conf guarantee. It would also allow the blockchain to work better because if the size of the block is known beforehand, a lot of validation work can be done in preparation. It will also allow various values that are currently centrally planned to be delegated out to other members of the network.

Satoshi’s Vision Conference

Séchet points out in his paper that the Bitcoin Cash roadmap for development has had pre-consensus on it since it was first revealed. However, zero progress has been made on that front. Séchet thinks that the developer community should focus on and prioritize implementing pre-consensus in the network, instead of working on other matters.

However, an opposing view popped up soon after. Craig Wright, the chief scientist for Nchain, came out swinging that he and his company won't support it, saying that if Séchet and others wanted it, they could just fork it.

Pros And Cons Of Pre-consensus

The result is two sides of the debate have heated up the Internet as they both discuss the pros and cons of pre-consensus. Some noteworthy names have weighed in, including Andrew Stone, lead developer for Bitcoin Unlimited, and Ryan X Charles, the founder of Yours.org. There have also been follow-up papers released. A group of developers calling themselves Team Rocket released "Snowflake to Avalanche: A Novel Metastable Consensus Protocol Family for Cryptocurrencies". The paper presents a unique way to implement pre-consensus on the network.

Those against pre-consensus have released their own paper. Entitled "Pre-Consensus Implies Content Without Giving It," it presents that pre-consensus is like the Segregated Witness protocol (Segwit), which caused its own controversy when it was unveiled.

According to the author of the paper, an @Logan, they both go against the original foundations of the Nakamoto Consensus, which is what bitcoin was originally based on.

In the paper, @Logan writes

This will change if we make a fundamental protocol change like a pre-consensus. We will be in the same position as Segwit, making the argument that Bitcoin needs to change and adapt over time. We will no longer be the protocol as described in the white paper