Chatter Report: Vitalik Doesn’t Believe in Proof of Work, Chris Pacia Discusses Big Blocks
In this latest roundup of crypto chatter from social media, Vitalik Buterin sparks debate by declaring that he doesn’t believe in proof of work. Also, developer Rhett Creighton is accused of foul play in the Bitcoin Private pre-mine scandal. Finally, Chris Pacia clarifies his stance on large block limitations.
Also read: A Look at Some of 2018’s Most Popular Cryptocurrency Traders
Vitalik Doesn’t Believe in Proof of Work
Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin turned a lot of heads recently when he tweeted to Bitcoin maximalist Giacomo Zucco that he doesn’t “believe in proof of work.”
I don't believe in proof of work!
— Vitalik Non-giver of Ether (@VitalikButerin) December 25, 2018
Crypto Twitter erupted with responses. One commentator, Crypto Domains, pointed out the ridiculousness of Vitalik’s comment, comparing it to not believing “in oxygen.” Crypto Domains’ remark resonated widely, not least since Ethereum itself currently runs on a proof of work model.
Bitcoin Community Skeptical of Rhett Creighton
The Bitcoin Private team recently released an official statement explaining that they had no prior knowledge of the BTCP coins that were covertly created during the fork that birthed the project. Instead, they were mislead by developer airk42, they insist. Airk42 had started out innocently by accepting a bounty the team had placed. He then managed to became a BTCP developer and was promoted to contributor on Github. However, when airk42 merged his own code, he left out one crucial line and a bad actor exploited this bug, creating approximately 2 million additional coins.
Many in the cryptocurrency community were suspicious of the BTCP team and their official response. In a recent live stream by bitcoin trader Tone Vays, developer Jimmy Song pointed out that former BTCP developer Rhett Creighton left the project in a rather cryptic manner that foreshadowed the hack.
Likewise, Vays expressed skepticism at Creighton’s sincerity and quickly theorized that he may have secretly been airk42. Cryptocurrency trader Nick Core also agreed with Tone, explaining that scammers are prone to “leave projects before they are finished.”
Chris Pacia Clarifies Tweet on Blocksize Limitations
Bitcoin commentator u/satoshi_vision 1 recently called out Openbazaar developer Chris Pacia on the r/bitcoincashSV subreddit for Pacia’s comments that bitcoin software will start to break down when blocks reach about 22 MB in size. u/satoshi_vision 1 was criticizing Pacia, as Coingeek had mined a 64MB block at block height 557335.
We were told by Chris Pacia that 22MB blocks would not work, not we have blocks nearly 3x that size. from bitcoincashSV
Pacia was unable to defend himself on the subreddit, as he had been banned from participating on r/bitcoincashSV, despite never having commented on it before. Instead, Pacia took to Twitter to defend himself, explaining that his tweet wasn’t about the ability to mine a single large block.
These people know damn well never was I ever talking about the ability to mine a single large block. Any idiot can do that and it doesn't prove anything. That they wet their pants over a single large blocks shows their level of understanding of how Bitcoin works.
— Chris Pacia (@ChrisPacia) December 26, 2018
Rather than large single blocks, Pacia was referring to the ability to mine many large blocks in tandem. He then went on to point out that the average blocksize over a one-hour period never went above 7 MB when BSV was mining 32 MB blocks.
What do you think of Vitalik’s thoughts on proof of work? Let us know in the comments below.
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