The news was partially buried due to the inauguration of Trump and the subsequent rumors of a strategic bitcoin (SBR) reserve, but developer B10C recently published investigation Show that F2POOL, a mining group that represents ~ 11% of the HASH power in the bitcoin network, is censoring the transactions sanctioned by Ofa … <a target="_blank" href="https://theminermag.com/home/2023-11-22/f2pool-ofac-bitcoin-transaction/”>again.
In case of what this means: the Department of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the United States Treasury Department maintains a list of sanctioned entities, including a series of bitcoin addresses; It is illegal to do business with these entities under US law. Actually, it is not clear if this means that miners cannot include transactions to and from these directions in the blocks they produce, but F2pool seems to be quite sure to cure.
Now, as long as it is only F2pool applying this policy, this is not really a problem. Some transactions will be delayed approximately ten minutes or so, occasionally, but that's all.
If more pools begin to do it, the delays will become longer and more frequent, but they are not yet terrible. Not even if it's most of the pools.
The real problem will arise if most mining groups not only censure transactions, but also refuses to build on the blocks that do include these transactions. If this happened, these transactions would no longer confirm at all … not as long as these mining groups remain a majority. bitcoin would no longer be resistant to censorship.
I really can't criticize F2POOL for adopting his policy. Although I would prefer if there is no censorship of mining pools, unfortunately we live in a world where even open source software developers can face prison time to allow users to freely make transactions.
Instead of flirting with an SBR, it would be great if the new Trump administration first stopped such state attacks against bitcoin.
This article is a Carry. The opinions expressed are completely from the author and do not necessarily reflect those of btc INC or bitcoin magazine.