Bitcoin Forum

My understanding of Gavin's motive is that the hard fork is purely ego driven. There's no urgency to change block size. He just wants to be dramatic and make his personal mark on it. But controversy, technical-wise, is that some Bitcoin users may have their coins lose compatibility with the new implementation. In a sense, it may be Gavin and Hearn's attempt to hijack the Bitcoin name and implement their own coin or make changes to the protocol.

He should make a statement about his plans here clearly explaining everything and giving a specific time frame. That would help quell all the confusion and misinterpretations.

It won't make the slightest bit of difference.

Everything you said is inaccurate. The reason there is a debate is because there are a lot of people on both sides of the blocksize increase, Gavin is not even close to being alone on wanting to increase the limit. He does not want to be the one to make the call on what happens. If you haven't watched a recent Q&A with Gavin and Mike you should, they specifically discuss the blocksize issue at the 27 minute mark https://youtu.be/RIafZXRDH7w?t=27m50s
Also no one is going to lose any coins unless you are a miner receive block rewards and you start mining on the "wrong/old" fork.

good answer. how many people have bitcoins? maybe some 1 million? how many watch these videos and understand the debate? only a few hundred i guess.
and that is the reason for the FUD  ::)

What do other people think?


If we can't come to an agreement soon, then I'll ask for help
reviewing/submitting patches to Mike's Bitcoin-Xt project that implement a
big increase now that grows over time so we may never have to go through
all this rancor and debate again.

I'll then ask for help lobbying the merchant services and exchanges and
hosted wallet companies and other bitcoind-using-infrastructure companies
(and anybody who agrees with me that we need bigger blocks sooner rather
than later) to run Bitcoin-Xt instead of Bitcoin Core, and state that they
are running it. We'll be able to see uptake on the network by monitoring
client versions.

Perhaps by the time that happens there will be consensus bigger blocks are
needed sooner rather than later; if so, great! The early deployment will
just serve as early testing, and all of the software already deployed will
ready for bigger blocks.

But if there is still no consensus among developers but the "bigger blocks
now" movement is successful, I'll ask for help getting big miners to do the
same, and use the soft-fork block version voting mechanism to (hopefully)
get a majority and then a super-majority willing to produce bigger blocks.
The purpose of that process is to prove to any doubters that they'd better
start supporting bigger blocks or they'll be left behind, and to give them
a chance to upgrade before that happens.


Because if we can't come to consensus here, the ultimate authority for
determining consensus is what code the majority of merchants and exchanges
and miners are running.


--
--
Gavin Andresen

Hi guys,

My skills go as far as downloading a wallet and moving coins about.

With this in mind.....

Can someone explain what Gavin is planning to do and how definite it all is?

Side chains etc? Double coins? Wtf?


Thanks in advance.

lol this looks like a sinking ship where those who are tech savvy are the staff and the non tech savvy are the confused passengers getting lost on what to do and which way to go to exit the ship.

Everything you said is inaccurate. The reason there is a debate is because there are a lot of people on both sides of the blocksize increase, Gavin is not even close to being alone on wanting to increase the limit. He does not want to be the one to make the call on what happens. If you haven't watched a recent Q&A with Gavin and Mike you should, they specifically discuss the blocksize issue at the 27 minute mark https://youtu.be/RIafZXRDH7w?t=27m50s
Also no one is going to lose any coins unless you are a miner receive block rewards and you start mining on the "wrong/old" fork.

<snip>
Drama, drama, drama
The ones who are most at danger to loose their value or coins are those like OP who don't know what the heck is going on.

Or on the new fork depending on which one makes it ...

I'm a little confused too.
All I really give a shit about is if my coins are safe in cold storage & if they'll lose value because of this crack pot / dick measuring venture.
Anybody explain this in layman's terms about what it means for current bitcoin owners / hodlers & the price / validity of them.
I don't care about blocks sizes, forks etc etc.
Bitcoin is a long term investment for me I don't need to know the techie science stuff.
All that matters to me is the price & that my coins will still be valid.

A worst case scenario:

Half of the merchants/miners/users still use the bitcoin-qt, work on original chain; another half of the merchants/miners/users upgraded to bitcoin-xt and work on the new xt chain

Pre-fork coins can be spent on both chain, which means the total coin supply becomes 42 million if you count both chains, then price of the coins on both chains will be cut by half

Hash rate will also be cut by half on both chains if the miners are 50/50 divided. Having a competing chain with almost the same hash power as your chain is a nightmare: It means your chain will be easily exposed to attack ( almost 51%, so the attack will succeed every once a while), double spending and transaction reverse will be daily event if the majority of the hash power on the other chain decided to do so. There will be hash wars which benefit none

So, like Jeff Garzik said, the hard fork is extinction level event, it should be carried out with fully reached consensus

This is a common misunderstanding from those who haven't seen Gavin's proposal on implementing the fork. The bigger blocks don't go live until the super-majority of nodes update their clients.

Will you stop spreading nonsense ... how are we going to lose coins by your logic?

A worst case scenario:

Half of the merchants/miners/users still use the bitcoin-qt, work on original chain; another half of the merchants/miners/users upgraded to bitcoin-xt and work on the new xt chain

Pre-fork coins can be spent on both chain, which means the total coin supply becomes 42 million if you count both chains, then price of the coins on both chains will be cut by half

Hash rate will also be cut by half on both chains if the miners are 50/50 divided. Having a competing chain with almost the same hash power as your chain is a nightmare: It means your chain will be easily exposed to attack ( almost 51%, so the attack will succeed every once a while), double spending and transaction reverse will be daily event if the majority of the hash power on the other chain decided to do so. There will be hash wars which benefit none

So, like Jeff Garzik said, the hard fork is extinction level event, it should be carried out with fully reached consensus

This is a common misunderstanding from those who haven't seen Gavin's proposal on implementing the fork. The bigger blocks don't go live until the super-majority of nodes update their clients.

You could loose your coins in case you use them after the fork on Gavincoin but then it turns out the gavincoin is plummeting in value (be it because some powerful people dump it or be it because techical problems arise) and miners switch back to the old fork on which your coins will be gone as MP already announced to mess with txs. It could likely happen that coins you spend on one chain happen to be spent on the other chain aswell as signed txs are the same on both chains and can and probably will be broadcast on both chains.

@OP
I'd just forget about BTC for a little while and get Litecoin, Dogecoin and some other alts with good reputation. They won't be affected in a negative way by all this. Most people with a brain will choose that route. Won't be a mistake to hold some Litecoin in case the morons blow up the Titanic.

Also for some understanding look at this crap:


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=919629.0

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=941331.0

Yea everyone should dump their btc and buy some shitcoins. LTC whew! Remember when that was $28 bucks each? How's the order of magnitude drop feel at $1.80  :D :D :D Don't forget to buy that potcoin and dashcoin and all the other unoriginal ripoffs that wouldn't exist if it weren't for BTC.

Don't forget to buy that potcoin and dashcoin and all the other unoriginal ripoffs that wouldn't exist if it weren't for BTC.

Your coins are fine. If the fork does not go well and there are two competing chains "old coin" and "new coin" they will both be using today's blockchain as a reference as to who owns what and then split from there, so worst case scenario you will have double the coins, one for each fork.

So I can spend my coins twice, once in each fork?

Of course a 50/50 divide is the worst scenario, currently the consensus is larger blocks is the way to go. To make it more smooth, Satoshi suggested phase-in the change earlier in several releases. But still, when someone is against the change, they would refuse to upgrade to the preparing-for-the-larger-block version

Thanks for all the replies everyone.

I still am a little confused and worried. I was going to buy another fairly large amount of btc but I must be honest I don't know what to do now.

I am the same as some of the others here and just buy and hold. (Whether this is good or not, it's what I do) btc is one of my investments as are precious metals. Btc has always seemed more interesting and appealing since getting involved in about sept/ oct 2013.

I'd be pissed off losing coins or suddenly holding a load of junk. I am still a bit confused about Gavin's proposal and as to when he wants it done. I understand it needs to be done as it can't carry on the way it is but it's hard to get into my head as I am not a techie guy and not a miner etc. I buy and hold and enjoy reading stuff in here.

I hold other alt coins but I would not feel comfortable transferring my btc hoard to an alt coin!

There is a lot of confusion here. Will btc still exist? Will it be something different? Sorry for the questions but it really does need to be explained in laymans terms.

I am sure there are many of us in here like me who want to know but I am happy to be the stupid one holding his hand up saying I don't get it.


Anyway, enough talking from me.

@OP
I'd just forget about BTC for a little while and get Litecoin, Dogecoin and some other alts with good reputation. They won't be affected in a negative way by all this. Most people with a brain will choose that route. Won't be a mistake to hold some Litecoin in case the morons blow up the Titanic.

Also for some understanding look at this crap:


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=919629.0

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=941331.0

Litcoin is not the answer here, neither is Doge and most other alt-coins. Why because they also have the same fixed blocksize issue and furthermore those communities have done nothing about fixed blocksize limits in spite of the debate that has been raging in the Bitcoin community for years. In order to use an alt-coin as part of a hedge against the 1 MB blocksize limit on needs to spend the time, do the research and pick an alt-coin that does not have this issue.  Otherwise it is just jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.

Litcoin is not the answer here, neither is Doge and most other alt-coins. Why because they also have the same fixed blocksize issue and furthermore those communities have done nothing about fixed blocksize limits in spite of the debate that has been raging in the Bitcoin community for years. In order to use an alt-coin as part of a hedge against the 1 MB blocksize limit on needs to spend the time, do the research and pick an alt-coin that does not have this issue.  Otherwise it is just jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.

A worst case scenario:

Half of the merchants/miners/users still use the bitcoin-qt, work on original chain; another half of the merchants/miners/users upgraded to bitcoin-xt and work on the new xt chain

Pre-fork coins can be spent on both chain, which means the total coin supply becomes 42 million if you count both chains, then price of the coins on both chains will be cut by half

Hash rate will also be cut by half on both chains if the miners are 50/50 divided. Having a competing chain with almost the same hash power as your chain is a nightmare: It means your chain will be easily exposed to attack ( almost 51%, so the attack will succeed every once a while), double spending and transaction reverse will be daily event if the majority of the hash power on the other chain decided to do so. There will be hash wars which benefit none

So, like Jeff Garzik said, the hard fork is extinction level event, it should be carried out with fully reached consensus

...

"Doing nothing" is also a choice and that option has just as many supporters if not more than Gavins' poop.

someone has proposed maidsafe, but you can't even call it an altcoin, right now every alt is affected by this, because they are just clone, i don't know right now if coin that run with cryptonote are affected to, but certainly they are, it's not a problem for those alt because they have still ridiculous numbers of Transactions per second, that's why newbie like "hund" can't see the difference

someone has proposed maidsafe, but you can't even call it an altcoin, right now every alt is affected by this, because they are just clone, i don't know right now if coin that run with cryptonote are affected to, but certainly they are, it's not a problem for those alt because they have still ridiculous numbers of Transactions per second, that's why newbie like "hund" can't see the difference

Wow there are 12 threads on this topic now (though it is a very important one). From the outside looking in it must look a little bit....chaotic.

I think any risk to the bitcoin ecosystem (including centralization) is very dangerous, talk of XT being in development for over a year are shocking to say the least. We need to have transparency, factionalizing bitcoin supporters into different groups is the type of game the elite play to control us. Surely there must be some middle-ground between the devs so we can solve this situation before it gets too out of hand.

@rjclarke the OP - This should help you mate, I asked a pretty clued up guy a question I think you'd want the answer to, no bull shit techie wizadry, just a simple answer investors like us need (The first part of the pic below - ignore the complicated stuff at the bottom) -

http://s22.postimg.org/t07ka0lkx/image.jpg (http://postimage.org/)

It seems if you have coins in cold storage you will be able to import them into either bitcoin client, core or XT.
Nothing to worry about it seems mate, let whatever happens happen.

Here's the nutshell explanation:

Gavin is going to make some critical (and necessary) changes to the Bitcoin code. Then everyone will join the new fork because that's the only thing that makes sense.

And that's a different coin? I mean, if I have Bitcoin, I will need to sell them and buy those famous Gavincoins?
Or those new updates and implementations will be added to the same Bitcoin of always..

If that's so, the next months will show some cryptocurrency life.

So, a fork is not an option, it involves too many impacts on every aspects of the bitcoin ecosystem

Just get rid of Gavin and continue business as usual without a fork and everything will be fine again.

...
The proposal from Gavin would require that 90% of the last blocks would have to be of the "new version" that will support 20MB max. size blocks but understand that the bigger blocks won't be valid until that 90% figure has been reached.

So there is no 50/50 scenario here and there is no "two chains are going to be active at once" either.

If this comes down to a vote requiring that 90% of the recent blocks to have accepted it seems about as fair as it could possibly get.

Hash rate will also be cut by half on both chains if the miners are 50/50 divided. Having a competing chain with almost the same hash power as your chain is a nightmare: It means your chain will be easily exposed to attack ( almost 51%, so the attack will succeed every once a while), double spending and transaction reverse will be daily event if the majority of the hash power on the other chain decided to do so. There will be hash wars which benefit none

I wonder if any of the big miners are going to fake version stamps to get the XT guys to jump prematurely.  That would be as funny as a crutch, and could be a way to make a ton of money.  At the start of the Battle Royal it is likely that the (arguably) ill-gotten gains could get lost in the mealy.  Or perhaps Me Lai is a better term.

My understanding of Gavin's motive is that the hard fork is purely ego driven. There's no urgency to change block size. He just wants to be dramatic and make his personal mark on it. But controversy, technical-wise, is that some Bitcoin users may have their coins lose compatibility with the new implementation. In a sense, it may be Gavin and Hearn's attempt to hijack the Bitcoin name and implement their own coin or make changes to the protocol.