[ACP-253] X-Chain Removal

[michaelkaplan13]

Proposes the deprecation and end-of-life of the X-Chain. All AVAX held on the X-Chain would be made available to its existing owners as UTXOs on the P-Chain.

[aphexmunky]

I think this is a shame tbh. There's no demand to put state sync and dynamic fees into the X-Chain so the overall maintenance overhead is low. State growth minimal. I'm guessing usage dropped a lot when the web wallet was deprecated. The chain had a lot more potential, particularly with the feature extensions and gave a very Bitcoin like experience to those that cared for that.

I'll accept there's likely no valuable assets other than the AVAX on X-Chain, personally I did have transactions recorded in there that used the memo field as a proof of existence to other content and I was hoping that would preserve for a long time.

The low usage is purely due to EVM + C-Chain focus. Instant finality UTXO experience is valuable if it's curated. Education remains a problem.

I'm against this but realise it's likely a battle already lost

[aphexmunky]

I would rather see it converted to a plugin with the option to turn it off via config frankly.

What's the plan with exchange integrations? I think binance and coinex had x-chain integration - ask them to move all their funds from X to C chain before the transition? Might mess with their internal accounting.

[michaelkaplan13]

I'm against this but realise it's likely a battle already lost

That's definitely not the case...this ACP hasn't even been officially "proposed" yet. The ACP process is meant for this discussion

[michaelkaplan13]

There's no demand to put state sync and dynamic fees into the X-Chain so the overall maintenance overhead is low.

That's not quite true. There is a definitely demand for state sync because otherwise the length of time it takes to spin up a primary network node will continue to increase despite the total state size remaining relatively small.

[aphexmunky]

Bootstrapping X-Chain time scales purely on number of X-Chain transactions/blocks? Or is there a co-dependency between X and P?

We shouldn't have an infinite growth feature sitting in technical debt, but feels very low priority considering the current low usage. I've never found the X-Chain portion of bootstrapping to be painful but i'm more than happy to have discussions around bootstrapping speed. Does that grow into a conversation about the implementation cost to payoff of implementing additional features like ICM, State Sync et al.

[michaelkaplan13]

Does that grow into a conversation about the implementation cost to payoff of implementing additional features like ICM, State Sync et al.

Yeah, to me that's the core of the question here. If it is the case that:

• barely anyone is using it
• it is not serving as a differentiator in its current form
• there aren't strong proposals to make it a key differentiator

Then what is the cost & lift size of removing it vs the cost and lift size of adding the future functionality that will eventually be needed to properly maintain it.

Removing the X-Chain in its current form also does not exclude the development of new UTXO-based chains for unique use cases.

[aphexmunky]

Agree

In an unlimited resources hypothetical, I would like to see the X-Chain develop features and grow more of its own identity. Become all the things that Bitcoin wanted to be before it had its OP_RETURN legs chopped off. Add privacy features. Add stablecoins. Add new signature mechanisms. Become a fast paced innovation chain. It's incredibly light and the codebase is clean. Just be a far better Bitcoin and familiar to that userbase but have a bunch of extra cool stuff developed over time. Then when that userbase wants to try defi we can point to an easy instant bridge they can try the more intimidating EVM experience.

I'd be interested in hearing some pitches for what cool things could be done with it before it's canned in any case. If it's marked for death, we could try have some fun with it before the lights go out.