UASF is starting to concern me. Not the UASF itself, but Greg's likely strategy here: refrain from endorsing it (because he knows it is silly), but let everyone else go for it so that it intimidates miners into supporting Segwit themselves. No UASF will happen in the end, but the threat of a UASF suicide run is hoped to incite miners to action. It is really an attempt to get miners to conclude that the market wants Segwit, by intimidating as many people and businesses as possible into going along with the suicidal UASF.
I always considered the following a simple knockdown argument against UASF: insofar as you can prove you have enough ecosystem/market support for a UASF, with the idea that miners will jump on later because it will be the most profitable chain, you only need to show this proof to the miners and they will activate the fork on their own. Thus a UASF is pointless insofar as it can be shown to be viable, and of course dangerous otherwise.
The trick here is that although the UASF itself is pointless, the *UASF movement* is not. The movement serves as potentially Core's last best hope of rallying the troops to make as much scary noise of revolution as possible to fool businesses, major holders, and in turn finally miners into believing Segwit is the way to go. It's a way of maximizing the "true believer" (in the Eric Hoffer sense) factor by giving economically insignificant hobbiest Core fanboy "full node" runners who are overly vocal on social media a sense of empowerment so that they rally all the harder. Greg knows UASF is dangerous if miners disagree, but seems willing to bet the farm on a game of chicken that miners may well not be up for. (And remember that even Jihan says, "Segwit is good tech.")
The endgame, again, is not to actually end up doing a UASF, but to use it to goad miners into activating Segwit themselves. And afterward Greg can claim the high ground, as he never sunk to the depths of Bitcoin ignorance that others did in their fervor for the wonders of Segwit. He sees the strategic benefits of playing with fire here, but he knows enough to ensure he never endorses it so that it can't burn him personally.
I always considered the following a simple knockdown argument against UASF: insofar as you can prove you have enough ecosystem/market support for a UASF, with the idea that miners will jump on later because it will be the most profitable chain, you only need to show this proof to the miners and they will activate the fork on their own. Thus a UASF is pointless insofar as it can be shown to be viable, and of course dangerous otherwise.
The trick here is that although the UASF itself is pointless, the *UASF movement* is not. The movement serves as potentially Core's last best hope of rallying the troops to make as much scary noise of revolution as possible to fool businesses, major holders, and in turn finally miners into believing Segwit is the way to go. It's a way of maximizing the "true believer" (in the Eric Hoffer sense) factor by giving economically insignificant hobbiest Core fanboy "full node" runners who are overly vocal on social media a sense of empowerment so that they rally all the harder. Greg knows UASF is dangerous if miners disagree, but seems willing to bet the farm on a game of chicken that miners may well not be up for. (And remember that even Jihan says, "Segwit is good tech.")
The endgame, again, is not to actually end up doing a UASF, but to use it to goad miners into activating Segwit themselves. And afterward Greg can claim the high ground, as he never sunk to the depths of Bitcoin ignorance that others did in their fervor for the wonders of Segwit. He sees the strategic benefits of playing with fire here, but he knows enough to ensure he never endorses it so that it can't burn him personally.
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