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Chatter Report: Zhuoer Claims BSV Block Created ‘Accidentally’, Falkvinge Likens Code Review to ‘Legislation’

In today’s chatter report, Calvin Ayre eagerly welcomes Jiang Zhuoer to mine on BSV but then quickly changes his mind. Zhuoer reveals that btc.top created a BSV block by accident and Rick Falkvinge calls for code changes to be reviewed in the same manner as legislation. 

Also Read: Linkedin Names ‘Blockchain Developer’ Top Emerging US Job of 2018 

Btc.top Creates BSV Block by Mistake

Coingeek owner Calvin Ayre recently took to Twitter to congratulate and welcome mining pool btc.top for mining a block on the BSV chain.

The celebration was short lived, as btc.top CEO Jiang Zhuoer published a Medium article in response to clear up the misunderstanding. In it, Zhuoer explained that btc.top had only ever mined two BSV blocks. The first block was an empty block mined before the BCH hard fork as a test for the hash war, and the second block was mined “accidentally”.

To add insult to injury, Zhuoer began criticizing Nchain chief scientist Craig Wright, calling him a detriment to the BCH community and a liar. Ayre didn’t take kindly to Zhouer’s comments and responded by calling Zhuoer’s post “nonsensical”.

Code Is Law and Should Be Treated as Such

As American Academic Lawrence Lessig famously said, “Code is law”. Well, founder of the Pirate Party Rick Falkvinge wants to take Lessig’s infamous quote one step further. Falkvinge is calling for Github pull requests to be reviewed in the same manner as new legislation.

In his latest video, Falkvinge proposed that code changes should be evaluated on their effectiveness, necessity and their proportion of good to bad. Changes are only effective when they move a project closer to its goals, he explained.

Are Changes to Bitcoin Code Necessary?

Falkvinge reasoned that change is necessary when there is a problem that needs to be addressed. With the Bitcoin community, the problem is that we have not yet achieved the goal of bitcoin as world money. Therefore, the argument that something like CTOR is unnecessary is not a valid argument because it implies that “no action is required”. Instead, Falkvinge believes that changes to the Bitcoin code are necessary until the Bitcoin community achieves the goal of bitcoin as global money.

Do the Benefits Outweigh the Costs?

Lastly, Falkvinge proposes assessing code changes based on the proportion of good to bad each code change brings. When the benefits of introducing new code outweigh the bad of not doing so then the change should be implemented.

To illustrate an instance when a code change was not worth being made, Falkvinge uses the example of the Bitcoin Core optimization that allowed a quicker block validation time but introduced a bug for “unbounded money creation”. Fortunately, Falkvinge points out that most code changes don’t have such disastrous effects, and tend to cause more good than harm.

At the end of the video, Falkvinge concludes by explaining that the worst thing is to move in the “wrong direction”, and so the default should be to constantly improve code.

What do you think of Ayre’s exchange with Zhuoer? Should code be reviewed like legislation? Let us know below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock.

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Tags in this story
Bitcoin code, Bitcoin Community, Blocks, BSV, BTC.TOP, code change, Code is Law, code review, CTOR, Hash War, Jiang Zhuoer, Lawrence Lessig, Legislation, mining, N-Featured, Optimization, Rick Falkvinge
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Marcel Chuo

Marcel Chuo majored in Economics with a minor in Social Justice. He has a background working in finance as well as technology startups. Bitcoin and blockchain technology is his passion.