Canada Bitcoin Players Unite to Fight Hard Fork, Reject BU

A group of Canadian Bitcoin players has united under Bitcoin Embassy leader Francis Pouliot to fight a hard fork.

In a letter written on behalf of sixteen businesses titled ‘Statement on Hard Fork by Canadian Economic Nodes,’ Pouliot announced outright that the local community “unequivocally opposes the Bitcoin Unlimited network split proposal.”

“We strongly believe that a hard fork, as actively considered by Bitcoin Unlimited or Bitcoin Classic, would cause massive disruption in our ability to onboard new Bitcoin users and would create irreparable damage to Bitcoin and to our businesses,” he wrote.

It is unclear to what extent individual signees support Segregated Witness implementation. On Twitter, Pouliot requested those not in accord with his statement to come forward.

If you are a Bitcoin company or group from Canada, contact me at francis@bitcoinembassy.ca to challenge claim Canada is united for Segwit. — Francis Pouliot (@francispouliot_) March 28, 2017

The move thus represents a further fracturing of the professional Bitcoin community over the scaling debate. As exchanges worldwide sign up to a consensus which would treat Bitcoin Unlimited’s chain as a separate asset, two are even allowing users to trade between BTC and BCU.

Pouliot meanwhile outlines criteria which should be fulfilled by a hard fork in order for it to be considered “non-contentious.”

That method echoes that of payment provider BitGo, which earlier this month provided its own list of requirements while stating Bitcoin Unlimited “fails all of them.”