Terminator Rumors of Miner Mutiny Make ‘Corexit’ a Trending Topic

2016. Jul. 01. 17:52

June 30 was an exciting day in the Bitcoin space as a post from 8btc.com called the “Terminator Plan” alleged that a majority of Chinese mining pools and facility operators are upset with the Core developing team. As the news spread like wildfire, a new slogan was created: “Corexit.”

Also read: China to Play a ‘Leading Role’ in Bitcoin’s Future

Will the Terminator Be Back?

It seems a vast array of miners within the Chinese region believe that the Core team defaulted on the Hong Kong Consensus meeting proposal back in February.

According to the 8btc post, Chinese miners are not too pleased, as the Core team has not honored the 2 MB block size increase. The report suggests that Chinese miners should unite in an objective called the Terminator Plan, which would, in turn, have miners in China adopt Bitcoin Classic.

When asked if the source was real on Twitter Bitmain’s Jihan Wu replied:

@lopp @kristovatlas On the 8btc forum, after reading the responses, 90% of them showing no objection against the proposal.

— Jihan Wu (@JihanWu) June 30, 2016

The rumored Terminator Plan says that miners should terminate using Core’s 0.13.1 client and adopt the Classic code, which will implement a 2 MB block size increase and is also compatible with Segregated Witness (Segwit).

This news has come off as unbelievable to some but also caused quite an uproar. The post and various threads similar to the 8btc report were deleted from the subreddit r/bitcoin as well, with no signs of the topic anywhere to be found. However, later in the evening, there were posts in the Reddit forum calling the Terminator Plan “manipulated fud” and calling its supporters “moon kids,” and degenerates.

Of course, the subject was a popular topic over at the r/btc forum.

Many Bitcoiners on Twitter used the #Corexit hashtag on Twitter, making it a trending topic most of the day. Comments such as “Make it happen China miners! #Corexit” and “#Corexit PLEASE, for the love and the future of Bitcoin, let this happen,” plastered the Twittershpere.

However, the Core developers were rather silent about the alleged formation of the Terminator Plan. Although there were some that called the 8btc post a hoax. Bitcoin developer Peter Todd expresses his disbelief explains via Twitter:

Appears to be a hoax; if it is real, I suggest miners put their public names on it and tweet it.

Another topic of discussion in between the fired up debate was the recent merge of Segwit by Pieter Wuille. The Core team had experimented with Segwit via testnet infrastructure and researched the concept for months. The community has been patiently waiting for the implementation and also some consensus on a block increase. Some have said all of these topics have been taking too much time as unconfirmed transactions, much longer waits, and higher fees have plagued the network.

At the same time, there are many users who still don’t care about these issues or deny the problem entirely, saying the network works just fine for them.

With all of this freshly-lit fire of heated debate happening again, it also looks as though the full Segwit integration won’t be happening for a while.

If miners are truly upset, they may remain so for quite some time as Gavin Andresen points out back in March 2016. Andresen commented on the issue back in March stating, “It has become obvious to me that some of the contributors to the Bitcoin Core project will not accept ANY so-called “layer 1” increase in the block size limit until “layer 2” code (Lightning Network) is finished.”

The question is, are the Chinese miners really going to become allied forces and adopt a 2 MB increase? Or was all of it just a hoax?

With 75 percent of the hashrate in the hands of groups like AntPool, F2Pool, and BTCC, the joke might not go over well if the Terminator says “Hasta la vista” to 0.13.1.