Joint Statement from BCH Miners regarding Bitcoin ABC and the November 2020 BCH Upgrade.

In February this year, we, a group of notable miners* voiced our concerns over the proposed IFP, which culminated in a 24 hour AMA session on reddit. The clarification of our stance resulted in the eventual 100% BIP9 miner voting AGAINST the IFP, which persisted until the deadline. This same group of miners are here today and have invited more BCH miners to issue the following joint statement:

Regarding IFP V2.0 - Our view remains unchanged from six months ago. We predict miners again being against this latest iteration of the IFP. Our reasons for being against also remain unchanged. In summary, these reasons are:

1. It reduces the sha256 share which in turn reduces the security that is offered to BCH which makes it a less secure coin.

2. It introduces volatility to BCH miners. Disrupting the rules of economics increases uncertainty. Miners that are expecting consistency in returns over a multi year period will get penalized. This ends up disproportionately penalizing altruistic BCH miners which results in even less security for the coin.

3. There is a slippery slope for allowing arbitrary decision making by one irrational individual, which can happen repeatedly after it has been done once. 8% today means it could be 80% tomorrow. 

4. Our group feels that ABC did not adequately engage with miners and pools with regards to their IFP proposals. This approach drives a further divide and stifles healthy communication between parties with vested interests in BCH. Furthermore, IFP V2.0 is an even more divisive approach as it was not accompanied by any RFCs with which pools and miners could engage.

With ABC’s new proposal for IFP V2.0, it appears they are not interested in further discussion. In the interest of mutual respect, we will honor their wishes and will no longer engage in debates. Regardless of IFP, our group has already completed the process of switching to BCHN. Since IFP V1.0 failed six months ago, we have been testing and running BCHN and find that it offers technical superiority in functionality and for block creation compared to Bitcoin ABC.

Over recent months, most miners and pools have switched to BCHN, and presently operate a majority of BCH hashrate. With the existence of BCHN as a mining node, we do not expect any sensible miner to choose to receive 8% less mining revenue.

Signatories List (alphabetical order):

• Kanat Amren - Founder of p2pcash.kz

• Matt Carson - Head of Business Development at Northern Data AG

• Andy Chen - Miner & Developer

• Daniel Conover - CEO & Founder of Tessarack

• Ian Descoteaux - (/u/DigitalOwls) CEO of DigitalOwls / CTO of pow.re

• Clay Johnson - CEO of JOHNSON Data

• Alexander Levin Jr - (/u/ugtarmas) CEO of ASICseer.com

• Li Pei Cai - Founder of Wayi.cn

• Daniel Neufeld - Managing Director at Benedura Business Advisors

• Peter Ng - (/u/1kbken) Founder of JD Mining

• Nishant Sharma - Founder & Partner of BlocksBridge Consulting

• Carson Smith - CEO of SBI Crypto

* /u/1kbken /u/DigitalOwls /u/ugtarmas /u/cryptomemer are the four miners that participated in the reddit AMA in February.

Attention, representatives of mining companies:

If you would like your name added to the Signatories List:

1. Make sure your company signs off on this joint statement.

2. DM @kotarius on telegram or /u/ugtarmas on reddit with your full name, position, and company name.
   

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