Bitcoin Forum

I know that the fork talk is low nowadays  ;D, and that the possibility of it to happen are close to 0.

But let's say it does happen and BTC exist in the two chains... Would it not be a possibility to profit from it? if coins are duplicated, the highest possibility is that they drop to half value. But, could it not be that they keep some of that value and people will end up with a gain %?

Would be kinda like a halving or not?

It's all or nothing in my opinion. If two chains continue side by side then that's a signal that the whole thing is about to go down the toilet. People won't put any faith in something that can split down the middle, not that that's how human nature works.

But if it happened, I think that its highly unlikely that value will drop to 0. Some value would remain, and perhaps then would go up from there?

However, I agree that the most probable thing would be destruction as you say...

There might be a tiny hard core of people still messing around with it but the loser would have to become a total irrelevance for the whole scene to survive. It might live on as an alt but nothing more.

Same here. Thus, I'm not sure how OP can profit from it but supposed that really happens with two different chains being there, people are already getting the misleading impression about bitcoin. As far as branding, trust and reputation are concerned, that will never work out. People who are new might be asking which one is better or which one is more superior, in the end both are not.

With two chains, the coins are not duplicated. Since everyone would still be on the same network and using the same magic bytes, every transaction that spends a transaction from before the fork would appear on both blockchains. You wouldn't have double the coins, you would just be moving them around simultaneously on two chains.

It is really so? if there is a fork and you spend a coin in blockchain A, How would that transaction be translated to blockchain B? Is that really possible?

I am asking from my ignorance. It seems to me that it would not be possible, since there is no way that the two blockchains would communicate anymore, but perhaps I am missing something.

Remember what happened couple weeks ago with Bitcoin XT nodes. Every split of fork into to separate beings will be catastrophic to bitcoin integrity.
You will not profit from it, in fact we all lose.

Yup. And that was just the tiniest taste of the real thing. That exploded instantly. If the real deal was on the horizon it would be a whole load messier.

There is absolutely nothing that distinguishes the transactions of one chain and the other except that some of the transactions might eventually lead back to a coinbase which is in one chain but not the other.

Assuming that nothing else changes except stuff for the fork, then nodes would still communicate to each other no matter which fork they are on. So they would still relay transactions and thus those transactions would appear to all nodes. If those transactions spent coins that were not tainted with coins from coinbases created after the fork, then that transaction would be accepted by nodes on both blockchains and thus be included in both blockchains.

The fork will not happen (thanks God). Case closed!

It serves no purpose to even talk about the consequences when it's not going to happen!

Bitcoin XT is real. So, why not? :)

What you need to know is that for the fork to happen (2 actual chains) you need to reach maximun consensus, which means that that point, the other chain is automatically rendered valueless. Your coins will be availible automatically in the other chain so no worries. Also its not going to happen anyway.

because there is no consensus for it, there are better proposal, and core is strong with the greater %

if it did split into tw chains.. then its not about users just using 2 chains.. its about whatever coinbase, bitpay and vendors choose as their prefered chain..

after all if users prefer chain 1 but 30,000 vendors linked via bitpay are using chain 2.. then there is literally no point using chain one as you cant spend it..

i think that worrying about thousands of users deciding on a particular chain is important.. when infact the decision is more about 7 business preferences that will cause one fork to fail or suceed.

so keep your eyes out for which fork/bip preference these companies have
bitpay
coinbase
bitpay
localbitcoins
illicit market


because whatever they choose. users will follow

Whatever happens is bad news for Bitcoin. This whole fork thing has spread enough confusion for business to second guess their decision to accept BTC as a payment method. Most people using Bitcoin without the technical knowledge, do not even know about the possible fork.

The businesses out there needs stability and trust in the currency they use and Bitcoin is not providing that at the moment. It is sadly all about Blockstream and The Lighting network and what profits engineers can make from this.

It is real, but if they meant to get some support, I am sure they would have gotten it by now! It's clear to everyone by now that Bitcoin XT was just a failed case of highjacking Bitcoin.

The blocksize needs to be increased, most people can agree with this. increasing the blocksize requires a hard fork. Regardless whether it is implemented in XT or Core.

It will not be possible to spend coins from chain A on chain B after the hard fork event. Whether we will have multiple surviving chains with the original genesis block will depend on how much support people give to these alternatives.

We should embrace the concept of hard forking away from the core developer team as an extension of the ethos of volunteerism and freedom. Since it is this mechanism that helps to prevent the centralization of power within a Core development team.

I would not discount XT just yet, miners are smart, they would not support a controversial fork without the support of the economic majority. If the blocks did become consistently full it would lead to transactions being rendered unreliable while also increasing the transaction cost, over the long term with increased adoption this would even lead to transactions becoming prohibitively expensive for most people. This scenario would cause economic pressure to increase the blocksize whether it be through Core, XT or possibly another alternative implementation. Since it is the economic majority that rules Bitcoin not the Core development team after all.

Well, you should remember that Gavin is a BTC VIP. All the BTC media says that he is the best developer. :))))
So, did he want to highjack BTC? :)

Yeah the idea of Bitcoin being hijacked is ridiculous, it certainly must stem from a lack of understanding of Bitcoin. The only way to "hijack" Bitcoin would be to circumvent the consensus mechanism.

Ironically the only way to circumvent the consensus mechanism would be to forcefully oppose alternative implementations of the Bitcoin protocol.

Anyway, it's odd. Without new development, BTC will die because it's so limited. With new development, Bitcoin will die anyway because it won't be BTC anymore :)

Bitcoin needs to change in order to stay the same. :)

True but very unlikely

I think it is highly likely that the fork will happen, the blocksize does need to be increased after all. I do not mean to be overly dramatic but if the blocksize is not increased then Bitcoin has no future.

Fortunately most people do agree with this therefore I think that the fork will happen, especially once blocks start to fill up, the economic pressure will increase and Bitcoin will need to change in order to stay the same. Incentives will most likely align in the near future to allow this to happen.

If fork will happen, BTC will be gone. There won't be any BTC just an Altcoin. :)
As I can see, BTC will be gone if the fork is not made too.

it's not like something that remove the limit, which was originally the case with bitcoin, when it was first released, can change bitcoin completely

it's a simple value in the code, don't get overboard with your arguments, nothing will change, it will be always the same old bitcoin, with its original 32mb limit

nope, it won't be because the Bitcoin XT is making much more than 32 mb. For example, it's tracking your location. How is it with the so called BTC privacy in this case? :)

I am sure that XT will be an Altcoin.

I think that you misunderstand, to fork is Bitcoin. Bitcoin was designed to fork in this way. If Bitcoin never forks it will die, this was always the intended design in terms of how we resolve disagreements. A blockchain fork is not the same as an altcoin, since it contains the original genesis block while maintaining the old distribution simultaneously.

I think that we should accept the reality that Bitcoin will split in the future, even if it is not because of the current blocksize debate. I think this is inevitable and off political necessity.

There is a beauty to this solution however in the way that it prevents the tyranny of the majority, and in the way that this maintains the pure concepts of freedom and volunteerism. If we do not think that this is Bitcoin then maybe our understanding of Bitcoin has been wrong. I think that this blocksize debate has been very informative in teaching us the true nature of Bitcoin politics.

It is the economic majority that rules Bitcoin, not some absolutist conception of consensus. If the economic majority becomes split then Bitcoin itself will split, since Bitcoin reflects the will of its participants.

However I do not think this will necessarily happen with the block size debate since I do think that if either Core or XT comprises their position or a third alternative is implemented then we should be able to reach a super majority for consensus, essentially allowing us to increase the blocksize without splitting Bitcoin.

XT does not track your location and Bitcoin is not private anyway. You can also support BIP101 without supporting XT. Keep in mind that under the BIP101 schedule the blocksize will only surpass thirty two megabyte at least eight years after the fork, which can also be curtailed using a soft fork in the future if deemed necessary, technology also does improve over time after all as well.

What we need is a third alternative to these two extreme positions of Core and XT. An implementation that strikes a middle ground between these two extremes will be more likely to achieve consensus. Presently however it is still a binary choice between these two extremes, therefore I choose the lesser of two evils by supporting BIP101 until a better alternative is implemented.

i'm not in favor of xt, i'm in favor of everything that can help bitcoin to grow, so if the limit has to be removed, and i repeat only the limit, nothing else, then it should be done sooner or later

actually i'm in favor of the dynamic limit, which is in bip 103 if i'm right

I still don't understand the dynamic limit thing. It sounds too good to be true. If it was that easy, it would have been done by now. Im sure there must be really serious drawbacks for Gmaxwell and co to not embrace it. There must be something that im missing because im not technically versed enough on this. Anyone knows why the dynamic limit isn't a thing yet?

It isn't that easy to implement, although the pseudo code exists. Also, the core devs disagree on whether to use a dynamic limit, fixed schedule increasing limit, or something else completely. Each of the options have its own drawbacks, it is just a matter of which drawbacks to accept and which to not.

going by logic, it should be something that change the limit based on the request of the network, if we suddenly need 2 MB, the limit in the code will be changed to 2mb etc...

it should be not so hard to deploy, with a properly algorith, there hardest thing than this in programming

Changed or be developed into something better? Change is different from improve. ::)

In the case of the blocks becoming full however it would need to change in order to stay the same, since fees becoming prohibitively expensive and transactions becoming unreliable would not be the Bitcoin we are used to, if we want Bitcoin to remain the same we need to change it, furthermore improvement does imply change.

Changing BTC as it is now, it means its dead. Leaving as it is now, it means dead too. I am not sure how BTC can survive in these circumstances.

I see many PRO and AGAINST fork.

Changing BTC is not the same as killing it, Bitcoin is meant to change. In the same way that people also change over time, adapting to our environments, learning from our mistakes. Growing and becoming better people over time. In the same way Bitcoin needs to change in order to grow up. Just because I have changed over the last decade does not mean I am a different person, I am the same person, I have just made the choice to improve my self and I am better for it. Bitcoin in many ways is just like this, embrace change, it is the only constant in the universe.