NO2X - Open letter to NYA - Urging signatories to abandon Segwit 2X support

The Seoul Bitcoin Meetup has penned an open letter to New York Agreement (NYA) signatories, urging them to rescind support for the controversial SegWit2x hard fork that is scheduled for mid-November.

The Seoul Bitcoin Meetup has nearly 1,700 members, making it South Korea’s largest bitcoin community. Thursday, the group posted an official statement criticizing NYA signatories for continuing to support the SegWit2x Bitcoin scaling proposal despite significant opposition from certain sectors in the community, including the Bitcoin Core developers.

The letter lists four specific complaints with SegWit2x and its proponents. First, it claims that the proposal violates the “very ethos of Bitcoin” because the wider community was not consulted before the agreement was struck.

From the letter:

If a select group of CEOs and investors, no matter how benevolent their intentions, can unilaterally make decisions about the consensus rules without public comment and force these changes upon the network regardless of overall consensus, then Bitcoin will have lost the properties that make it valuable in the first place.

Next, the Seoul Bitcoin Meetup argues that SegWit2x “incurs a large risk” by potential fracturing the community “but wastes most of the opportunities afforded by a properly planned and executed hard fork.” The group goes on to criticize the proposal’s supporters for proceeding in a “careless manner” that does not give the ecosystem sufficient time to prepare for the protocol upgrade.

Finally, the letter alleges that replay protection — which ensures blockchains remain separate and prevents an attacker from broadcasting a transaction on multiple chains — is being handled in an “unacceptably irresponsible manner”.

SegWit2x developer Jeff Garzik has proposed adding opt-in replay protection, which would allow users to manually protect their coins on both chains, but he and other SegWit2x proponents have resisted calls to add opt-out replay protection, which would automatically separate the two blockchains. Their defense of this position is that SegWit2x is an upgrade to the Bitcoin network — not an altcoin — so the priority should be making sure all users follow the hard fork rather than providing protection to a “dysfunctional minority chain”.

The letter concludes by urging all NYA signatories to “reflect upon their positions and withdraw support for this harmful agreement.” They add that they will advise the local community to avoid patronizing NYA-supporting businesses.

“Do the right thing,” the letter concludes.

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