Armory opposes Hard-Forks, supports SegWit

 

Armory is an open-source wallet management app specifically for Bitcoin. It supports SegWit or Segregated Witness to deal with the scalability issue of Bitcoins network. Armory contradicts hard forks that counter the original Blockchain. It can organize the change and apply a migration tool for another wallet that supports the change.

Armory Wallet is not conducting consensus assessments because it depends on the link to Bitcoin Core, a local BTC node. Bitcoin Unlimited works provided changes do not block formats or transactions. Armory is seen as being congruent with the hard fork provided both BTC formats are alike. It will permit users to transact without an interruption on the forked network. However, replay attacks can take place because transactions for the two networks are valid.

An attack happens (intentionally or unintentionally) if the transaction is limited to both the Blockchains. The result is loss of BTC due to transaction replay. Armory suggests a setup that allows users to avoid this if BTU or another form of increased block sizes get activated. Users must have two copies of Blockchain data for seamless exchange between core transaction history and BTU.  It is not necessary for users to rescan the BTC chain to get a copy of pre-fork database. Users are compelled to use Armory’s feature of Rebuild/Rescan Databases to modify databases after the fork.

Armory Rejects BTU

The majority of Bitcoin enterprises and operators turned down Bitcoin Unlimited because of problems in decentralization and security.

Andrew Chow (Goat Pig), lead developer of Armory, explained Armory does not view the philosophy of BTU to let miners choose the Block size appropriate for BTCs blockchain. He emphasized that the block size must not be decided by votes of users and miners. The block size limit is not a magic number. Voting on this number does not improve the restriction. The only tolerable solution is algorithmic and not the technical metric.

Prevention of Transaction Replay

Users need to “stain” their Bitcoin to avert any transaction replay. There is no risk in performing this step. The objective is to secure one transaction on a particular chain that is not applicable to the other. Users can mix remaining BTCs with the stained output following this procedure. You can test this by sending the coins to yourself with minimal fee. This is considered the most effective way of tainting on BTU to facilitate a transaction. It will confirm right away on BTU, but not on Core. Once the transaction is mined on Bitcoin Unlimited, replace the primary output on the Core chain with substantial fees.

Users will get the “Unspent Transaction Output Set” (UTXO) exclusive on the Unlimited chain and another one on the Core chain if the replace by fee (transaction) is confirmed on that one.

Position of other Armory Developers

An anonymous contributor to Armory explained his views thoroughly in a post on Reddit. The recommendation of Armory is not meant to endorse any chain. Neither is it an opinion about the fork. In fact, the Bitcoin Wallet can work on these two chains if the correct steps are followed. These include steps to avoid so both chains and databases are segregated. Likewise, it is advisable to remove coins from the Bitcoin exchanges and taint them before the fork.

The developer observed that the BTC wallet forum is not the right venue for engaging in arguments or communicating personal views. On the contrary, Armory is a free and open-source platform where users can contribute codes.

Access of Users to Both Chains

The Armory wallet will give users access to both chains once a fork occurs. The developers spent at least three months to deploy support for SegWit and a compacted public key. The reason was to separate code paths. These compressed keys were introduced with correct handling of bytes or fees, permiting the use of lower fees. However, features rely on dedicated codes users are not compelled to adopt.

Finally, the developer identified several points of discrepancy or difference with Bitcoin Unlimited for purposes of clarity:

  • It is necessary for Bitcoin to scale
  • However, he does not agree the scaling needs to be made at this time, opting for a SegWit version that reduces the block size by 50%, which would still provide an increased capacity.
  • He does not concur with the position of Bitcoin Unlimited that the block size must be ascertained by votes of users and miners.
  • At the same time, said developer disputed the design of BTU for this choice
  • He contradicts BTU’s decision to deploy the design because this does not achieve the main objective. It’s a difficult code that tries to hide behind the complexity.
  • He does not tolerate miners attacking the Core blockchain if a fork takes place
  • The developer said it is not right to fight over the legacy of Satoshi and the name of Bitcoin
  • BTU developers are quite incompetent in his opinion. They made several mistakes, which is why he does not care about sustaining the code base

 

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