Bitcoin SV BSV: Hard Fork
The second and more significant upgrade is proposed for Feb 4th, 2020 and is planned to include a set of protocol restoration changes that represent an almost complete return to the original protocol and as such we have decided to give it the code name “Genesis”. The proposed date is 11 years, 1 month and 1 day after the original Genesis block and this upgrade represents the return to Genesis and the restoration of the Satoshi Vision that is the project’s namesake and primary purpose.
The Genesis upgrade will also address scaling. We believe that by late in 2019 the Bitcoin SV node software will have implemented all of the safety mechanisms required to allow us to eliminate the block size cap altogether and let miners manage it without intervention from developers. So long as those changes are completed we intend to bring the planned date for allowing unlimited block size forward by almost a year and lift the cap completely in the Genesis upgrade.
The (incomplete) list of proposed changes include:
- Sunsetting of P2SH
- Replacing 32 math op codes with BigNumber versions
- Sunsetting OP_CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY and OP_CHECKSEQUENCEVERIFY
- Restoration of original OP_RETURN functionality (with a fix for the OP_1 OP_RETURN vulnerability)
- Limited support for the original sighash algorithm to ensure any legacy transaction that have been kept offline become valid on BSV again
- Removing all extraneous limits on script sizes, transaction sizes etc…
What is a hardfork?
The cryptocurrency mainnet operates according to certain rules. To improve network performance or correct errors, changes are periodically introduced into it. A hard fork represents changes that are not compatible with previous versions of software supporting the cryptocurrency network. In order to continue to mine the cryptocurrency, miners need to update the software.
In some cases, as a result of a hard fork, a completely new cryptocurrency may appear, as happened with Bitcoin Cash and EthereumPoW.