Bitcoin-for-business startup BitGo has said Bitcoin Unlimited (BU) “fails all criteria for being a supportable hard fork” in the current climate.
Adding its voice to the scaling debate, which has spread to include not just industry figures but businesses as well, the company said in a blog post that it would not support a contentious hard fork.
“BitGo considers any hard fork which is rolled out without industry-wide consensus and therefore splits the network, to be an altcoin, not Bitcoin itself,” the post states.
“This is irrespective of how much hash power the forked coin may have.”
Adding that any derivative of a contentious hard fork would be treated as an altcoin, BitGo echoes the consensus declared by many extant Bitcoin exchanges, released in a public letter last week.
On the topic of Bitcoin Unlimited, however, its position was also clear.
Citing three criteria to be meet in order for a fork to be recognized - “a clear on-chain activation mechanism,” “strong two-way replay protection” and “wipe-out protection,” BitGo stated BU did not meet any of them.
“In fact, it fails all three criteria,” the post continues.
“...As such, we will not be able to provide support for a hard fork caused by Bitcoin Unlimited in its current form. If the Bitcoin Unlimited team undertakes the efforts needed to make the fork in a supportable manner, our position on this would change accordingly.”