Wherever there is a large quorum of people, anything involving decisions towards implementing a change is met with some opposition. Sometimes those opposing the change may resort to dirty tricks to prevent the change from being implemented. Bitcoin community is no different. Bitcoin community has a large quorum, comprising of users, miners enthusiasts, developers and so on.
Bitcoin XT, a new fork introduced by Gavin Andresen and Mike Hearn can potentially turn out to be a big change to the bitcoin network. Bitcoin XT and the associated BIP 101 aims to increase the maximum block size from the existing 1 MB to 8 MB, which is doubled every 2 years. This change is deemed necessary for the bitcoin network in order to support the growing number of users and transactions in the near future.
However, not everyone agrees to it. While Bitcoin XT has received support from bitcoin users, few developers and researchers, many mining pools, especially the Chinese ones are not happy with it had they have posed a stiff opposition to it. Apart from the opposition from mining pools, Bitcoin XT now has a new problem to deal with. Recently many Bitcoin XT users claimed that their computers were attacked over the internet. The victims of these alleged attacks believe that they were attacked for their pro-stance towards Bitcoin XT.
According to few Bitcoin XT supporters, these attacks were focused on those computers running Gavin Andresen’s version of software with an intention to tip the ongoing debate about Bitcoin XT against its favor. SatoshiLabs is also one among the users and organizations that came under attack.
SatoshiLabs, the Czech Bitcoin innovation and product company has been offering an option for miners to declare support for Bitcoin XT on its platform — Slush Pool. SatoshiLabs allegedly faced a DDoS attack last week and the attackers demanded the company to disable the feature on Slush Pool in order make the DDoS attack stop. Even ChunkHost, a US based webhosting company also faced similar situation after one of their customers switched a software powering Bitcoin ATM to Bitcoin XT ATMs.
The fate of Bitcoin XT is not clear yet. The results will depend upon the support it manages to garner in the coming days.