Miners on the Bitcoin Cash network have proposed the creation of a 12.5% “tax” on the Bitcoin Cash coinbase block rewards to help fund developers who work on the Bitcoin Cash ecosystem.
According to the proposal, published on Medium by Jiang Zhuour. the CEO of BCH’s largest mining pool BTC.TOP, the funds would be provided for six months and would go to a Hong Kong-based corporation set up to legally accept and disperse the funds.
The proposal notes that the funds “tax” would be applied between May and November of this year. It could siphon as much as 112.5 BCH per day to fund developers, which would mean the equivalent of just under $7 million would end up supporting those building on Bitcoin Cash.
The proposal is being supported by Bitcoin.com, BTC.TOP, BTC.com, VitaBTC, and Antpool, which together represent a majority of the identified BCH hashrate, but little over one-third of the total hashrate. Zhuoer admits the proposal is controversial, going as far as suggesting orphaning mined blocks that don’t follow the plan.
Zhuoer’s Medium post reads:
To ensure participation and include subsidization from the whole pool of SHA-256 mining, miners will orphan BCH blocks that do not follow the plan. This is needed to avoid a tragedy of the commons.
The CEO of BTC.TOP adds there wouldn’t be any type of voting going on, separating the funding plan from those used on other blockchains, such as the Dash blockchain. Moreover, he adds the “initiative is under the direction and control of the miners, who can at any time choose not to continue.”
Behind the funding proposal are several motives, including a “typical tragedy of the commons” occurring because only a few companies support developers, while other members of the ecosystem are “free-riders” benefiting from development they didn’t support.
Moreover, Zhuoer noted corporate donors have “an undue influence on developers” which could lead to centralization as the developers wouldn’t want to go against those funding them.
Featured image via Pixabay.
