ShapeShift CEO Erik Voorhees has hit out at suggestions that changing Bitcoin’s algorithm is an effective way of resolving its scaling problem.
In a tweet on Monday, Voorhees branded the idea as “the most absurd and reckless thing I've heard in the scaling debate.”
Changing Bitcoin's proof-of-work to prevent miners from mining is the most absurd and reckless thing I've heard in the scaling debate.
— Erik Voorhees (@ErikVoorhees) March 20, 2017
His comment sparked a lengthy exchange in which multiple posters accused Voorhees of siding with Bitcoin Unlimited’s bigger blocks solution, something he repeatedly denied.
“[Threats and blackmail] is [sic] not a legit option. It's the height of foolishness and desperation, the last bastion of a tribe unwilling to put egos down,” he added in response to another poster.
Bitcoin businesses such as ShapeShift, which profits from fees generated by exchanging cryptocurrencies, have a vested interest in block size expansion, which would allow their user base to grow and transact more efficiently.
Payment merchant BitPay last week announced it would raise its minimum invoice amount from 4 cents to $1 as a result of increased miner fees, while Coinbase followed by placing fee paying responsibility for on-chain transactions at its customers’ door.
Bitcoin’s famous names remain heavily divided over changing Bitcoin’s proof-of-work algorithm. Over the weekend, Core developer Peter Todd suggested doing so would be “a good backup plan,” while fellow developer Greg Maxwell stated on Reddit that “no one who works on regularly on core has said anything about POW changes [as far as I know].”
Todd subsequently added that such an action is “a high-risk move” and would be “best to only do that if an attack actually happens,” while reiterating that Bitcoin Unlimited did not constitute an example of such an “attack.”