Bitcoin Forum

Would a bitcoin fork happen suddenly without notice or would there be an announcement made giving people time to prepare for it? How much time do you think would be given? 1 day, 1 month, etc... Thanks.

There is nothing to be worried about, It's impossible for a fork to happen without the bitcoin users knowing about it. Keep an eye on Coin.Dance, Bitcoin unlimited signalling need to reach 75% while SegWit need 95%, even If that happens, the forks won't take place instantly.

anyone can download a copy of a node and then with a friend. set the 2 nodes to only talk to each other and then change the rules as they see fit.
this is called making an altcoin.

many people have done this and no one cares because its just an alt.

however if you want the network to follow you. you need the majority of the networks consent.
you can set the announcement for 1 week, 1 year 5 years etc(whatever). but if your changes/desires do not meet the desires of the others on the network. they will not follow you.

the current bitcoin debates are trying to get network majority consent or they simply wont bother.
yes segwit may want to split off and ban ~75% of the pools using UASF even if the 'vote' is only around ~25% by this october.

but they then become a minority altcoin. which is less secure and can be attacked by the majority. where by it takes longer for blocks to be solved. the blocks are spammed and many blocks get orphaned.

this is why both sides are hoping for a majority to reduce risks of orphans, hash attacks, spamming and sybil attacks

franky1, Are you running a full node?  If so....what client are you supporting?  Is there any way that we can hedge our bets on the "off chance" of the occurrence of a fork actually precipitating very suddenly?  I mean....I learned something with the ethereum fork....the newer chain gained the support and the older chain lost value....but there was a window there where both had equal value and some took advantage of that situation by acting quickly....What do the tea leaves say here?

No there would be an announcement I would say a week or two would be the warning period.
 Could go as long as a few month if people are in agreement to that path but an arranged fork would probably be given due warning before it is done.
Otherwise users would just ignore that fork and continue mining on the main chain so it will not be done lightly.

It's similar to changing your node to do something other nodes will not do that is a fork if no one else follows you then its just a path down to blockchain suicide. Either way signalling comes to mind we will see some signalling towards it first that act's as the advanced notice.

The other possibility is that a fork happens at some point in the past (e.g., at block-height {nnn} where current is {nnn}+n.)  This is actually probably the most likely scenario, and is the scenario we've seen in hard-forks of the past.

Keep a hold on any old depleted wallets one might have kicking around just in case.  Even without a fork it could in some cases be handy to use the message signing ability of the secret keys.

It would be cool if they mass produced usb flash drives with an older version of Core so everyone could plug and play.

I am worried about sudden fork happening  out of the blue too. I am monitoring and reading bitcoin news, but what will happen if I won't be in a loop for some time?
For now I have my coins stored in Electrum wallet. Will my coins will be safe if I don't do anything (update or upgrade of some sort) when fork will happen? 

i have my own. with a few tweaks.
infact i have core, my own(wrote in different language) bu, classic, bitcoin j and others. i play with them all depending on what im doing/testing

but in short.. if segwit activates.. BU, xt, classic, and al the dozen others 'brands' (if not biasedly banned by blockstreamers) will still get the filtered (trimmed) blocks. but obviously by not having segwit validation. will only be in the hodgepodge of second tier(downstream) part of the network but not fully validating segwit data.. and just relaying native tx's upto segwit upstream nodes..
essntially making BU classic, xt and older nodes just lite wallets.

but if BU, activates.
xt, classic and a dozen other 'brands' will all be ok ALL on same level.(no 2 tier)
 but then core end up seeing orphans and banning nodes to ignore the orphan drama. thus stalling out core, forcing them to either
tweak code to join the majority (give in and raise the block limit).
ban nodes and only white list core nodes to start their minority coin
stay stalled and turn node off

if classic activate
BU xt and a dozen other 'brands' will all be ok ALL on same level.(no 2 tier)
but then core end up seeing blocks it doesnt like .. so orphans and banning nodes to ignore the orphan drama. thus stalling out core, forcing them to either
tweak code to join the majority (give in and raise the block limit).
ban nodes and only white list core nodes to start their minority coin
stay stalled and turn node off

---

i think the simple solution is for core to:
keep the TXSIGOPLIMIT at 4000.. that way no matter what the blocksize is, malicious TX's dont start making bigger sigops (EG cores 0.14 16,000 rather than 4000 - facepalm)
and core to put in a RPC and GUI options tab where users can reset the blocklimit live...WITHOUT needing devs to give in/spoonfeed.  without needing to recompile.. so that users are more incontrol and adaptable to change without needing devs to decide for them if/when/how.
that way users can change settings at their leisure and become more independent

To fork is like playing with fire. The last example was Ethereum, and we've seen it losing two thirds of its value in barely 2 months. When you are very far from the majority, as is Segwit today, to fork would be like shooting yourself in the foot. I can't expect that to happen soon.

Nope, every fork will run through the consensus. because consensus is a rule.

So, don't think the hardfork can be done for the instantly. I don't think if it is possible to run an instant fork without doing a consensus.

There is precedence here: https://bitcoin.org/en/alert/2013-03-11-chain-fork  I think that incident could put things into perspective a little....sometimes unexpected things happen that produce immediate results.  That was a close call and it relates to what may be possible within the current trend of things.

i hope bitcoin never fork i like it how it is right now

There is no announcement, I would say a week or two would be the warning period.
you could go as long as a few month and people are in the agreement path but, an arrangement fork would probably be given due warning before it's going to be done. It's similar to changing your node to do something other nodes will not do that is a fork. If no one else follows you then its just a path down to blockchain suicide. Either way signalling comes to mind we will see some signalling towards it first that act's as the advanced notice. The other possibility is that a fork happens at some point in the past.

Perhaps you are right, but only if everything remains as it is, then this is a big risk. How did you say suicide? Perhaps this is really so. But until now it was normal. Maybe I'm wrong.

the two parts/oponents are almost equal for now 33% and 33% or something like this only when a part reach 51% we will have the risk of a hard fork