On October 6, 2017, the web portal Bitcoin.org announced it was “denouncing” the Segwit2x hard fork and companies involved with the project. The site plans to publish a banner on every page of the website explaining the “risks of using services” that are associated with the November 2MB fork and development team.
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Bitcoin.org: ‘S2X Companies Will Be Called Out by Name’
Things are getting pretty climactic in the land of bitcoin, as many cryptocurrency proponents are warring over the Segwit2x hard fork that’s expected this November. On October 6, the two anonymous owners of the website Bitcoin.org, ‘Theymos’ and ‘Cobra Bitcoin,’ stated they would soon be posting a warning on every page about the risks of Segwit2x and every company involved with the fork will also be mentioned.
“On 2017-10-11 at noon (UTC), Bitcoin.org is planning to publish a banner on every page of the site warning users about the risks of using services that will default to the so-called Segwit2x1 (S2X) contentious hard fork,” explains the site’s first warning message. “S2X companies will be called out by name.”
To ensure that we only warn users against companies that will actually put user deposits at risk, we urge all companies to publicly clarify their stance before the above date, either by a highly-visible public statement or by commenting on Bitcoin.org issue #1835 (or by doing both).
During the original discussion on Github concerning whether or not Bitcoin.org should add the denouncement warning, a few individuals were against the action. Cobra Bitcoin the ‘other’ leader of Bitcoin.org says he’s made the Segwit2x risk warning a “red alert” because he thinks the November hard fork is “possibly the greatest threat to Bitcoin.”
The cryptocurrency proponent and Cornell University professor, Emin Gün Sirer, called the Bitcoin.org denouncement an act of religion. “Denounce?” asked the professor. “As heresy, I assume.”
I like the choice of religious language — Scientific discussions left the building years ago.
The Curious Case of Bitcoin.org’s Commandments and its Tethered Wiki Page
The operators of Bitcoin.org want businesses to state their intentions towards the fork and declare they will not call Segwit2x “BTC” before the next published warning. According to the post, “miner’s actions cannot be used as a justification to redefine Bitcoin.” This statement is similar to the article Theymos posted to the ‘Bitcoin Wiki’ website on August 8 called, “Bitcoin is not ruled by miners.” Companies are not allowed to default to “S2X software,” says Bitcoin.org but “providing access to S2X-coins is acceptable, however.”
“Although bitcoin.org condemns contentious hard fork attempts such as S2X, we consider it tolerable for companies to support S2X in ways that do not contradict the above three points, such as by supporting both Bitcoin and S2X simultaneously as separate cryptocurrencies,” details Bitcoin.org’s first announcement.
Theymos: ‘Targeting Those Involved With Segwit2x’
Of course, the entire community has been quarreling over this announcement on forums and other forms of social media. A vast majority of the r/bitcoin crowd supports the website’s announcement, while the other side of the debate believes the website’s decision is absurd. Theymos, who is also the lead administrator of the Reddit forum r/bitcoin, states on the forum’s announcement thread, “this bitcoin.org blog post is mostly targeted at the involved companies and other in-the-know people,” explains the owner of Bitcoin.org.
“A much more detailed article aimed at a wide audience will be published in about a week — In the meantime, you can see here for background info,” he adds.
What do you think about Bitcoin.org’s recent announcement? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
Images via Shutterstock, Bitcoin.com, Twitter, and Bitcoin.org.
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