Bitcoin Lack Of Consensus Does Not Mean Destruction: Lightning’s Russell

Lightning Network developer Rusty Russell has described a lack of consensus in Bitcoin as the “best failure mode a store-of-value system can have.”

Russell made the comments concluding a blog post about how a consensus-based route to a Bitcoin hard fork would work in practice.

His balanced view contrasts with current fears over the effect of November’s SegWit2x hard fork on the Bitcoin network, which is already experiencing operational changes as a result of the Bitcoin Cash hard fork in July.

“[A] lack of consensus doesn’t destroy Bitcoin, it just keeps it to its current state, which is truly the best failure mode a store-of-value system can have!” the blog post states.

“I’d personally and loudly oppose a proposal I agreed with, unless I was convinced it had consensus.”

Achieving a truly transparent hard fork consensus requires “a lot of work,” Russell added, having previously confirmed his support of a UASF and even taken responsibility for the delay to a Bitcoin scaling solution.

A successful method would include tools to minimize the chance of participants “gaming” the system to skew the outcome, he added.

Earlier this month, Russell warned Bitcoin’s fees would “only rise” from then on, a phenomenon which has broadly come true as mining habits dictate the limited availability of confirmation capacity for BTC versus Bitcoin Cash.