On July 27 the world’s largest bitcoin payment processor, Bitpay, announced its plans for August 1st. According to the company, there is a lot of “misinformation” concerning updating Bitcoin’s consensus rules and the firm does not plan to suspend services that day.
Also read: Fork Watch: These Bitcoin Exchanges Will Not Support ‘Bitcoin Cash’
Bitpay Thinks Fork Risks Are Minimal
The Atlanta based Bitpay doesn’t think much will happen on August 1 and plans to keep operations going. The company is one of the largest bitcoin payment processors globally and deals with a lot of transactions daily. The company explains in its recent blog post that most of the Bitcoin network’s hashrate is directed at the NY consensus agreement at the moment and disruption should be minimal.
“While we’ve always held the view that there was very little risk of network disruption on August 1st, the risk was not zero,” explains Bitpay.
For such a disruption to occur, a majority of miners would need to switch to mining on a competing chain of Bitcoin, potentially reversing any transactions processed since the split. While risky for these miners, it is not an impossible scenario.
The ‘Good News’ Trumps ‘Misinformation’
Bitpay believes there’s been a lot of media attention surrounding the possibility of a fork and a lot of “misinformation” going around. The company states that consensus rules are chosen by the miners, and full node operators must upgrade their software if “they wish to continue to fully validate the blocks of transactions that miners produce.” According to the company some individuals and even miners can disagree with consensus changes and veer off from the main chain, and these situations can bring heightened risks.
“There is good news,” says Bitpay. “The mining community has already activated the consensus changes being proposed for the competing chain. That means that on August 1st, there should be no chain split and no disruption in service on the Bitcoin network.”
While we will continue to monitor the situation closely, at this time BitPay has no plans to suspend service on or around August 1st.
While there are a number of companies planning to suspend services such as bitcoin withdrawals, deposits, and even trading Bitpay seems pretty lax about the situation. The company is one of the first businesses to state they are not worried and will not be suspending operations for the 1st of August.
What do you think about Bitpay’s decision to keep operations going during a possible fork? Do you agree that nothing major will happen on August 1st? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
Images via Shutterstock, Pixabay, and Bitpay.
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