Bitcoin Forum

Hi,

This is my first post and I consider myself as a big beginner even if I read a ton of topics about Bitcoin and hold a few BTC, ETH.

As we all know a BTC "crash" happened last night. I consider it was a small one but this morning we can see a lot of people speaking about the reasons (Seems to be something about Bitcoin XT, hard fork, ...).

I repeat, as a beginner I don't understand everything about technicals explanations and I think it could be a good idea if someone try to vulgarize this big debate for us ! I want to know the issues and particulary for the few BTC that I hold. What is the risk if I don't do anything and hold my BTC ? What's the difference with BTC XT ?

Thank you,

There's no risk for you, just keep your private keys safe.

Well, the risk is the investment, it can go up it can go down, but that's the risk we all take with bitcoin.

My advice for you is to do your own research.

Most crypto magazines delivered some information on the topic. Read e.g. here
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/21588/bitcoin-xt-big-block-fork-spurs-debate-controversy/

You don't have to do anything really. Just don't keep your money at any exchange or gambling site as if there is a fork you won't know which one the site is on. Keep all your BTC in your own wallet. It's up to you if you decide to use XT or not, do your own research. My opinion is that all XT supporters are either mislead or braindead.

There is only one diffirence that interesting you, block larger than 1 MB (up to 8MB) accepted since january 2016.
Thats all, if you will use bitcoin XT client it will be always compatibile with bitcoin core.
If you are using bitcoin core, there could be problem starting from january 2016

No, its both ways. If you use XT, you won't be able to send coins to Core, and vise versa.

Thanks,

I still have a lot to learn. I never ask myself what client I was using. I just bought some BTC on an exchange and send them to my cold storage. I guess I can still hold my BTC, whatever happens in january 16 will not affect my holding, isn't it (despite the quotation obv) ?

Thank you for all the answers, I think it's important for advanced users to take time to explain this kind of things to beginner in order to grow the number of new users and so the popularity of BTC.

The biggest problem will be the incompatibility of the blocks found by XT vs those found by Core.  That's the definition of the fork.  Some miners and pools will be mining blocks on the XT node.  Others will be mining blocks on the Core.  As has been explained, the item of interest in XT is the support for the larger block size (up to 8MB).

To happen, as of January, 2016 at least 75% of the network must be mining on XT nodes.  Today we saw the first XT block mined (by Slush) as far as I know: https://www.blocktrail.com/BTC/block/00000000000000000174419fa2ba5003e123dbd97c6982aff1863f016b04789d

Just keep informing yourself and learning. Until 2016 there is a lot time and you will be able to learn many things. As one of the users has said, if you keep your private keys safe, you will be fine, whatever happens. All in all, all of our bitcoins will be safe, whatever is to happen.

Also you need to understand that this situation is confusing enough even for us, more experienced users. There is much FUD out there and even we are reading and learning daily so it's good to have patience with us as well.

Yes I almost forgot, welcome to Bitcoin! :)

I really have no idea whats going on with all this. I am going to go hibernate in a cave till its all over.

Yes, this might be the best thing to do, for everybody. The most important thing to keep in mind is that our coins should be relatively safe, 99%. With this in mind, we can all just wait for this to be over with and live with the consequences (lower price and more volatility probably).

I would personally recommend against using Bitcoin XT...
it's tearing both the economy and the original idea apart..

The crash was more of a insider thing at bitfnex im pretty sure...

If you see the time frams that sell off happened very short, then with a speedy recovery to go back up. As for the hard fork, just wait it out on how people react.

I`m sure theres going to be reddit threads before or on the day of..

I think hibernate in a cave is a not a good appoach lol.

But, more of just observing how people react to it should be more considered if anything and know to read about the btc xt update.

I don't think the "crash" had anything to do with XT.... well, maybe it helped with timing. But it was pretty obvious that attempts were being made to trigger stops and margin calls on Bitfinex. Bulls were way, way overleveraging into a down trend.

"Vulgarize"? Hmmm, that doesn't sound like a good idea in this venue. ;)

There is a lot of info in the Bitcoin Discussion section. I'm a bit concerned because there seems to be a lot of extraneous code in XT that is not related to increasing the block size. Seems unnecessary at best and perhaps nefarious at worst.

There is no risk to hold your BTC (well, except to your USD value hehe). In the event of a fork, you would hold your bitcoins on both blockchains. I'd hold them until it becomes clear which chain has won.....

I agree , nobody knows everything about technical explanations . so many traders on market don't care about it and dropping is because of bitfnex ..... but if the dangerous of bitcoin xt become global certainly it will Affect on market ..............

Bitcoin Core is Linux - decentralized, consensus-based
Bitcoin XT is Microsoft - spies on you, takes control over your privacy (and funds), blacklists, is closely connected with NSA and CIA

you decide

If this is true anyone can choose easily its choice. But I read that the XT is another thing. It is some kind of "liberation" of the market of bitcoin. Not own more from blokhchain but for the market. Or I'm wrong?

With all the risks in bitcoin im just ignoring the XT and bitcoin debate risk, its always been high risk so...

There's no need for newbies to worry about the hard fork. First of all, it can't happen before January 11. It's probable that it never happens at all actually. And even if it does, your coins will be safe. So just wait it out, the drama will probably dissolve in the following months. In case that the fork happens, you can be sure that there will be ways for you to use your coins as you like on any occasion.

I am not saying they should leave this forum and come back in 6 months. They should stick around and keep an eye on the situation. Since you never know what might happen. As you see, Bitcoin world is unpredictable. :)

But to sweat hare everyday, especially about something that you don't understand, I wouldn't be doing that either.

Quick ELI5:

Running XT at this time is equivalent with running Core. It's the same network, and the same Bitcoins. At some point in the future, if 75% mining majority is reached (but not before January 2016), the network will split whenever a miner creates a block larger than 1MB. This will not be accepted by Core unless they adopt a large blocks patch, but will be accepted by XT, and at this point there will effectively be two chains.

Running XT means that you will always be on the largest (75%+) chain, regardless of whether the fork actually happens or not. Running Core means that you will be left behind if a 75% majority is reached. Regardless of which version you run, coins will be safe (on both chains) as long as you acquired them prior to the fork, and for some time the chains will largely mirror each other.

I am not so technically advanced but isn't there a way to patch the bitcoin core to solve the big blocks issue? why can't developers together decide on something that wouldn't lead to the fork? This whole thing is really embarrassing and is putting a somewhat bad impression on Bitcoin and I fear that if this so called fork happens it might just kill bitcoin.