A group of bitcoin cash (BCH) miners met on May 19 to discuss a new funding proposal that could be used by professional programmers. The meeting, planned after the Coingeek Conference in Hong Kong, presents a new mechanism which could help in the further development of the currency. The funds will be generated through block rewards given to miners. The attendees of the meeting talked about donating between 1 to 5 percent of their block reward to fund the development of the blockchain.
The Coingeek Conference laid the foundation of this meeting, which was attended by several high-profile executive of various initiatives as well as lead developers of BCH. Many miners also attended the meeting. Executives from Coingeek, BTC.top and Viabtc were available for the meeting. Representatives from Bitmain’s Antpool, Roger Ver and others from the Bitcoin.com pool were also present. The meeting was also attended by SBI Bits’ Jerry Chan, Electron Cash founder Jonald Fyookball and Bitcoin ABC’s Amaury Sechet.
During the meeting, the attendees discussed how they envision the next step in BCH development and how they propose to fund the projects in the future. They also discussed other blockchain projects that adopt a similar approach to development, by donating a percentage of mining rewards to fund themselves. The method of fund distribution and use of miner signatures to vote on the development projects was talked about in detail. They also focused on a smart contract technique called OP_Code Timelock. This technique helps in restricting spending of the funds until a certain block height or time is achieved.
One of the most important points of discussion was voting on proposals. A bitcoin.com representative said, “Virtually all of the mining pool representatives agreed to support a proposal that would allow miners to vote to fund community proposed initiatives, voting on them in the same way that vote signaling works now.” He further stated, “If a proposal crossed a 75% threshold, it would pass — And would be funded with some predetermined amount from every block found.”
Though the meeting witnessed suggestions to donate 1 to 5 percent of the block reward for development of the blockchain, no consensus was reached by the attendees. Note that BCH is one of the most prominent coins in the industry. It is the fourth largest currency by market capitalization as well. Even 1 percent of the block reward could mean significant amounts to the developers. If the prices of the coin remain above $1,200, then even 1 percent of the block rewards could amount to $650,000 every month.
Jiazhi Jiang from Bitmain introduce the four main goals of BCH. These are- “Innovation for the protocol; large block sizes; more infrastructure apps and developers/people; and being better at spreading the word.” Although bitcoin cash has a very strong community, he noted that Ethereum and DASH were actively supporting development unlike BCH. He also focused on formally organizing the community which could help in taking the project forward. He said that “outsiders don’t know how to join us”. Therefore, the present miners and developers need to work together and create an organized infrastructure that could call brilliant professionals to the group.
