Bitcoin Forum

Danny Hamilton, achow, Carlton Banks and the rest of the Bitcoin technical gurus, can you comment on the post I quoted.

I left his name out on purpose. I want an unbiased technical approach to answer this.  


There is also this little fun drama I want to ask about. I believe "they" means Barry Silbert and his friends.


Is this bullshit? Then what really happened?

Unfortunately, the source was on my watchlist all along: A reply from franky1 Thoughts on the Bitcoin vs Bitcoin Cash Dilemia (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3571838.msg36732581#msg36732581)  :)

Yes, it is -- as much as soft forks can be backwards compatible.
Yes, that's HOW it is backwards compatible; segwit transactions appear as anyone-can-spend to old (non-segwit) nodes.
This applies for all SOFT FORKS.
The LevelDB incident caused an inadvertent chain split/ Hard fork.
Again, this applies to all soft forks, unless you, like Popescu, are against soft forks and don't consider P2SH addresses and transactions as valid.
Segwit transactions are not validated by legacy nodes because legacy nodes CANNOT correctly validate them.

All his talking points apply to ALL SOFT FORKS in bitcoin, from BIP16(P2SH) to CLTV, to Segwit.

Franky is trying to bombard the reader with meaningless jargon to obfuscate what backward compatibility is. Let's look at what it means (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backward_compatibility):

It doesn't matter whether legacy nodes fully understand new scripts. What matters is that both versions retain interoperability (compatibility). Necessitating that every node validates every aspect of every transaction would entail hard forking and breaking compatibility every time you wanted to add a new consensus rule.

Regarding backward compatibility, what matters is that new rules don't break consensus. If Segwit compromised the integrity of Bitcoin (regarding supply, etc.) then its blocks would be rejected by legacy nodes. Older nodes still check newer blocks against their consensus rules. They are simply continuing to propagate valid transactions and blocks, even though they may not fully understand them.

All of this was laid out by Satoshi long ago. Bolding by me for emphasis:


It should be noted that soft forks are not backwards compatible by definition, as many people wrongfully claim. As soft/hard forks are currently defined in Bitcoin development (side note -- not a fan of these definitions since they are orthogonal to network compatibility), a soft fork simply means adding/restricting consensus rules.

It's completely possible to incompatibly soft fork -- for example, if 51% of miners do not enforce the fork -- in which case a soft fork is not backwards compatible.

An incompatible soft fork and a hard fork are not particularly different, hence my distaste for the above definition.

Based purely on miners and not the economic majority, what happened is an outside developer stepped in and offered a solution that would alleviate the deadlock and prevent UASF from happening.  Miners were then left with the choice of Segwit2x or regular SegWit, Bitmain had declared they were going to launch some bullshit fork with a premine, but no one cared about that.  And then seemingly out of nowhere, BCH forked away, but lacked the hashrate to produce enough blocks to maintain the ~10 minute interval.  This indicates they had very little mining support and had to implement an emergency difficulty adjustment to compensate for it. 

The only impact BCH had was to cause SegWit2x to abandon their plans because they didn't want a 3-way fight, particularly considering BCH took some of their market demographic.

So even on purely the mining front, BCH was always the minority fork.  But that doesn't take into account the economic majority, which they had even less chance of winning.  Ultimately, it really doesn't matter who is responsible for the BCH fork. 

The text above in particular is pure imagination. No evidence exists that Bitcoin Core (or DGC) deliberately created Bitcoin Cash to force miners (the 65% opposed) onto the Bitcoin Cash chain.

Evidence does exist that even if that was the secret plan, it most certainly didn't work: Bitcoin Cash would have 65% of the global hashrate now if that were true. Bitcoin Cash has never had anything close to that hashrate, now or in the past (it's not even reached double digits IIRC)


What actually happened was that the miners compromised with BIP91, probably because they wanted to make sure they could continue mining without causing a controversy that would affect the BTC price too much. BIP91 was an aggressive way of getting BIP 141 (the Segwit softfork) activated, which was achieved by orphaning non-segwit signalling blocks and activating Segwit at an 80% signalling level instead of the 95% signalling level required by BIP141. BIP91 was similar to the UASF BIP148/9 in that way, it took what was a simple signalling exercise and changed into something more forceful.

Only miners ran the BIP91 code, as far as the rest of the Bitcoin network was concerned, BIP141 got it's 95% signalling and BIP91 never existed (segwit signalling went straight to 95% anyway very quickly after miners started running BIP91, which is kind of predictable seeing as miners risked losing any blocks they mined once 80% of miners were signalling BIP141). I don't know how many miners were actually ever running BIP91, as simply signalling BIP141 was enough to make sure they could continue mining without having their blocks automatically orphaned. BIP91 was a risky move, but it all happened so quickly that there was little time for anyone much to feel nervous about it (except the miners not signalling BIP141 yet, who were probably pretty stressed out for a day or so)


TBH WindFURY, you should be able to tell that most of this is nonsense without having to ask anyone; the writer suggests that the old style of Bitcoin addresses (starting with a 1) can no longer be used. This is so obviously false that it's not really worth giving any of it much time.

Yeah, this never made sense to me. If that 65% of miners were so involved and dedicated to make Bitcoin Cash the leading crypto, then why the hell have they gone back to Bitcoin? If they had such a philosophical conviction about big blocks being the way to go, they would all keep mining BCash, even at a loss if needed, in order to support it, but facts point otherwise.

Current stats from right now can be seen here:

https://fork.lol/pow/hashrate

Looks like barely anyone cares to mine BCH compared to BTC. That conspiracy theory is therefore nonsense.

Thank you. Yes, I am starting to believe that he is one of Roger Ver's most loyal followers in /r/btc. His hate for the Core developers is like a man's hate for a cheating ex-wife. Hahahaha.

But I encourage him to go to that topic and let the readers decide. It's good for fairness' sake. Plus the more he speaks the more the bullshit is exposed as bullshit.

Lately the BCash propaganda machine is spamming this on a bunch of internet forums:

https://cdn.pbrd.co/images/HkzgYvj.jpg

Looks like they really think that eventually the hashrate will go from Bitcoin to BCash because they argue that LN will not allow miners to make enough revenue for it to be more profitable that people transacting on-chain on BCash, which would eventually lead to a "flippening" and therefore chain death for Bitcoin (and as a result, BCash would become "Bitcoin").

They are trying really hard to keep the price of BCH up.

As long as the Bitcoin blockchain lives, as long as the market is supporting it, as long as the Core developers maintain it, as long as its community stand behind it, the word Bitcoin will always refer to what the big blockers call "Bitcoin Core".

They have lost.

Why here? I  mean, in this thread.

Is there any way to patent the name "Bitcoin" because V and his lads wont stop these kind of propaganda unless there's something regulating the "names".
Like a specialized world-wide patent regulatory body for open-source projects to protect the brand.
Potentially, it can minimize scam coins and ICOs too. The system will be too complicated, I guess.

Anyways, here's to be on-topic again: Yes, SegWit is Backward Compatible :)

But saying "Bitcoin Cash is Bitcoin" to confuse the public is wrong. Are you arguing that it's true? Then ok. Give me your Bitcoin address, I will give you some Bitcoins.

Are you going to give me your Bitcoin Cash address? Hahaha.

Bitcoin is the cryptocurrency the big blockers call "Bitcoin Core".

Did you just mistook me for a Bitcoin Trash supporter?  :o
The the main point of my post is: It's getting off-topic. (look at your title and OP)

Read this again:

Anyways, no hard feelings and I think it's time to lock this thread.

Thank you. (+1 politeness)

There is something "regulating the names", it's the brains and respective mouths of the people involved in cryptocurrency. If some people want to shout very loudly "Bitcoin Best is the real Bitcoin!", it doesn't much matter, because no-one else will care.

Besides, being called "Bitcoin" doesn't make something inherently or universally good, there are (probably) a majority of people out there that dislike Bitcoin, and so to them the name carries nothing but negative connotations.

The trouble with legislating this sort of thing is that the legal system is pretty corrupt already, and Bitcoin is treading on the toes of an even more corrupt system (the banking system). Do you honestly feel confident that a legal judgement about the "real Bitcoin" will produce the "right" answer?

Man BCH people are sooo desperate haha. It's pathetic. Just looking at that text, "BCH will live forever", "Bitcoin will die", "BCH will become Bitcoin". God how pathetic can you be?! You know they know they've got nothing going for them when their only tactic is to say Bitcoin will die and their altcoin will somehow become Bitcoin haha. Their entire value proposition for BCH is to pretend they are Bitcoin, which begs the question, why not just stick with the real thing haha. But I guess conmen will always try to con people.

segwit is not backward compatible
segwit as is, is not understood by legacy nodes. copy a segit block into a legacy block AS IS in full proper segwit format. a legacy block will not enjoy or accept it.

legacy nodes cannot FULLY VALIDATE A SEGWIT TRANSACTION
legacy nodes cannot RELAY A UNCONFIRMED SEGWIT TRANSACTION
legacy nodes cannot RELAY A stripped legacy formatted segwit block back to the relay network of segwit enabled nodes for them to validate
if you grabbed the blockchain as is in 2018. and copied it into a directory of a legacy node. the legacy node will NOT find the data compatible

imagine it this way. imagine there was a bug in segwit nodes that shut them down as soon as they run.. in no way can anyone say 'its fine the blockchain is fully understood and validated by legacy nodes and the network will run fine without distruption'.

what really happens is that segwit nodes who choose to allow legacy nodes to b conected to them, strip and translate a segwit block into something a legacy block will STORE but not fully validate
if anything segwit is "legacy translatable on request".

that way it does not confuse people to think that legacy nodes are a backup if segwit nodes fail. bcause if segwit nods fail. they wont be available to translate. so people need to be aware that there would be network disruption should segwit nodes have a bug

the bitcoin devs admit this.
they went to great efforts to explain that legacy nodes are not part of the relay network. instead they are treated as second layer nodes
which require a segwit enabled node to do the translating for the legacy node.
greg maxwell calls the segwit nodes that translate "upstream filters"
luke JR calls the segwit nodes that translate "bridge nodes"

here is even a picture of the process, provided by those that coded segwit
https://bitcoincore.org/assets/images/filtering-by-upgraded-node.svg

analogy time
segwit is wrote in dutch and the blockchain prior to august 1st is wrote in english. the legacy nodes only understand english. and anything dutch they will not accept. it requires a dutch node to translate ON REQUEST the dutch blockchain into pidgeon english. though its not 100% graammatically valid the english will blindly accept it, under the prtense that the dutch node has validated it and knows what its talking about

i use dutch as an example because of pieter wuille's native language and the fact that segwit is pieter wuille native project.

so will people stop with the propaganda that legacy nodes are on the same level playing field as segwit nodes. because its not just propaganda. its actualy a security risk to the network to make people believe that legacy nodes are fully compatible and will continu running even if segwit nodes had a bug.

and if you want to argue how much of a part legacy nodes are in the peer-to-peer network. by pretenting its all intercommunicable and everyones on the same level playing field.
take another long look at the image. then have a few coffee's, sit and think about it for a bit. ask youself why the 'older nodes's are separate. and then go read code wrote by pieter wuille, go read stuff by gregmaxwell and luke JR. go speak to the devs. and stop just taking the word of these fanboys (achowe/carlton) who care more about promoting and ovrpromosing but dont care about security/bugs.
yep ill even call out achowe who has profited in the bast from a core bug, without then reporting the bug to the core devs.

have a nice day.
be sure to sit back and have coffee.. remove the core defense cap, take off the overpromoting shirt. and relax for a bit before replying

franky1, I know that you made that argument to make yourself believe that Bitcoin "bilaterally split" into two so that you can call Bitcoin "Bitcoin Core" and Bitcon Cash "Bitcoin Cash".

But if we look at the history of ALL soft forks and hard forks of Bitcoin in the past, https://blog.bitmex.com/bitcoins-consensus-forks/

Do we then have the right to call Bitcoin "Bitcoin Something" post fork?

No because there was no chain split when the soft fork to Segwit happened, which was what the Core developers were avoiding right from the beginning, the same as there were no chain splits in the soft forks of the past. Bitcoin remains intact.

It was Bitcoin Cash that forked away and became an altcoin.

ha ha ha such a comedian
grabbing blog posts full of twisted buzzwords

how about read real data. like the blockchain itself
how about speak to the main devs. not the SPV wallet core fan wannabe's

bitcoin CORE, on august 1st  rejected any blocks that were not signaling for segwit.
basically bitcoin core rejected all legacy blocks.. thus bitcoin core did actually split AWAY from the past.
yep bitcoin core went in a different direction. and so did bitcoin cash.
hense it was a 2 way split. where both sides decided to go in separate directions compared to the past.
thats the very definition of a bilateral split.

and it was not a consensus upgrade because that would be where no split occured, everyone continues on the same network and no legacy blocks get rejected but new formats get accepted aswell as legacy blocks.
but a consensus event did not happen
 
core only had 35% vote under consensus.. so they gave up on waiting for consensus. and got their partners to organise the mandatory bilateral split.(again check the blockchain, check with the devs, both show it. (hint:blogs dont outrule real data))

yep.. and dont take the word of your propaganda pals. look at the data, its in the blockchain.. talk to the main devs (not the SPV wallet guys you have been hugging lately)

gmaxwell, pieter wuiile, luke Jr, etc all admit it was a bilateral split event on august first.
it was not a consensus event. so the propaganda blog you displayed is foolish nonsense of misrepresentation.

i think i have had my fill of laughs for the day,
its real funny that you been fooled into thinking that mandarorally demanding that nodes reject blocks  that would be valid under normal rules is a softfork.
windfury. if there ever was a bitcoin conference, and you become a public speaker. if you say what you have been saying recently, proper people that know whats really happened. that have been around alot longer then you. will ask who wrote your script and is your segment the comedy night part of the conference.

i think its time you go find other opinions and new script handouts away from the core defence league. because the core defense league is not the bitcoin decentralisation league. which is more reason to ensure people know about the bilateral split and how/why/when core gained controls of the network.. and why the community should name the network now empowered by core as bitcoin core.  
core should not own brand bitcoin.. no one should.

but i already know. as you admitted already you sheep follow core. so all arguments about
bitcoin decentralisation, vs core defense. you will always aid the core defense.

but dont reply until you have looked at the blockchain and done some proper research. because you are just slipping further and further away from understanding decentralisation. and definetly sounding like you are not desiring or defending decentralisation

have a nice day.

"Waaaa!  Core did this!  Waaaa!  Core did that!"

NO.

Users and miners made a conscious decision to run code that rejected blocks that weren't signalling for SegWit, therefore it was the users and miners who made that happen.  It doesn't matter where the code came from, or who made it, because code is completely meaningless if no one runs it.  The network participants make the decisions, not the devs.  I don't know how many more times you need it hammered into that thick head of yours.  If the users didn't agree with the effects of that code, it wouldn't have happened.  Come back when you have the first clue what you're talking about.

This is completely and absolutely false. Bitcoin Core at no point in time implemented BIP 148 or BIP 91 nor was there any release of Bitcoin Core which supported BIPs 148 or 91. All (https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/10442) attempts (https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/10442) to implement (https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/10417) BIP 148 and BIP 91 (https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/10444) into (https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/10900) Bitcoin Core were never merged. There was no release of Bitcoin Core (https://bitcoincore.org/en/releases/) that contained any support for BIPs 148 or 91. All clients that did support it were software forks of Bitcoin Core and created by primarily (i.e. mostly) by individuals unrelated to Bitcoin Core (as in they have not contributed to Bitcoin Core before). While some Bitcoin Core developers did partake in the alternative implementations for BIPs 148 and 91, this does not mean that Bitcoin Core supported it nor does it mean that Bitcoin Core rejected non-segwit signalling blocks on August 1st as Bitcoin Core itself did not have code for that.

 
Technically, it was the miners. By my recollection, there were not many BIP148 nodes at the time -- no surprise since it was rolled out on such a hasty timeline. BIP91 was activated by miners, and it was hashpower -- not users -- who meaningfully rejected non-conforming blocks.

If miners didn't activate BIP91, I believe BIP148 would have flopped and hardly anyone would have noticed, because BIP148 was incompatible with Bitcoin Core -- most of the network -- absent majority hashpower.

I believe this distinction is worth noting for posterity. The next time you guys plan on activating a UASF on such a rushed timeline, it may not work out so well.

We have absolutely no idea whether BIP 91 was actually being enforced. There were zero non-conforming blocks found following BIP 91's activation. I highly suspect that BIP 91 was not actually being enforced by the majority of the hashpower or by users, they were simply signalling BIP 91 and following its consensus rules with threat of being kicked off of the network for not conforming being enough to get miners to follow the consensus rules. In the past with other soft forks, miners have actually signaled for a soft fork without actually enforcing its consensus rules post-activation; they were simply setting the correct version number. It just so happens that in most cases, miners did not create invalid blocks following the fork.

The UASF really was not rushed. It happened with months of notice and a lot of users were joining in on it. Obviously Bitcoin Core did not release anything related to the UASF

It seems like franky1 has warped his mind so badly with his own propaganda that he no longer remembers events as they actually occurred.  

Hey franky1, maybe tell us how many miners were still actively producing legacy blocks on August 1st?  The main thing I remember about August 1st was that BCH forked out of nowhere with barely any support and they couldn't even find a block until much later in the day.  Everyone was expecting drama and fireworks, but it was more of a sad, disappointing, wet fart.   ::)



True enough, miners certainly had a fairly big role to play as well, so I'll edit my post to include that.  But the users ultimately agreed with the miners and elected to go for SegWit.  If the miners had activated SegWit and the users didn't want it, the chain wouldn't have lasted very long.  Plus, it was the /BTC1 client (which was not maintained by the Core team, so it's baffling as to how franky thinks it's their fault) that got the ball rolling.  



For the record, I was never personally a fan of the UASF, to put it mildly, heh.  That's not quite what I meant when I said it's the users who make the decisions.  Miners can't make changes unilaterally without users -and- users can't make changes unilaterally without miners.  Well... either can try, but probably won't get far.  There's an equilibrium to maintain.

I'd only encourage a UASF to witness the spectacle of it falling flat on its face.   ;D

Twisted buzzwords? That's only a history of all soft forks and hard forks Bitcoin had.


There was no split. BIP91 was activated by the miners fair and square. It was their decision.

Bitcoin Cash was the one that split.


There was economic consensus, the miners followed and activated BIP91.
 

But who activated Segwit? It was still the miners through BIP91.


There is no propaganda here. These are only facts.


But what's funnier are the morons who go to conferences saying Bitcoin Cash is Bitcoin. Hahahaha! 8)


The same with you. You need a new one because your Roger Ver script is killing babies. Hahahaha.


But you are the sheep of Roger Ver, Craig "Faketoshi" Wright, and Jihan Wu.

How can you support scammers?


The more I debate with you, the more I know you are not as smart as you think.


A nice day to you too. Thanks, I am learning a lot beacuse of our debates.


I believe it was the UASF that gave pressure to the miners to activate BIP91. If UASF flag day happened, the miners would have no choice but to bow to the community than risk having a chain split.

If you take a look at achow101's post above, there's apparently no evidence that any miner was ever running BIP91 code, only that they were signalling for it in the blocks they mined. This was enough to get 95% of miners to signal BIP143 (that activated mainnet Segwit). BIP91 was essentially a MASF (miner activated soft fork) that was possibly never deployed widely, or even at all, but the contemplated losses from getting blocks orphaned was enough to get BIP143 above 50% signalling, and that's enough to convince the remaining 45% needed to activate a soft fork to signal (and start making blocks with a client compatible with the soft fork) too. The miners/pools are not going to be confident enough that remaining on an incompatible client won't lose them money, and in the case of BIP91, they knew that if it was really being run, then they could be totally confident they would lose money. So you're right that an economic consensus was reached amongst the miners.

https://twitter.com/LukeDashjr/status/1003350409157726208

I hope that this will put franky1's claims to rest that Bitcoin "bilaterally" split into two to BTC and BCH. That tweet is right from a Bitcoin's developer's mouth like he asked.

Plus Bitcoin Cash is nothing but "centralized sock puppetry". Try to guess who said that.

don't sweat it WindFURY, these characters have been around a long time, and it only serves to illustrate how strong Bitcoin is. If the only way to attack Bitcoin is with name calling, alternative "facts" and ghost stories, you can safely ignore it most of the time

if btc did not fork(split) on august2017..
then btc would be using the exact same
block format as pre august2017.
transaction formats as pre august2017.
network topology as pre august 2017

but no, btc forked/changed/split in august. meaning a 2 way split.
both went in separate directions to the pre august 2017 protocol

go ask Luke JR why old nodes need "bridging nodes" to translate the full block data
go ask GMAX why old nodes need "upfilter nodes" to translate the full block data

especially how after august. a full archival blockdata is only relayed between peers using
MSG_WITNESS_BLOCK
and the 2009-2017 MSG_BLOCK no longer relays a full block data.. it only relays a stripped version (analogy: translated to pidgeon english from dutch)

analogy
august 2017 the blockdata changed from english(legacy) to dutch(sipa's prefered format) which new nodes can relay using the new MSG_WITNESS_BLOCK
legacy nodes that send MSG_BLOCK dont get the dutch data as is.. instead its a dutch TRANSLATER(segwit node) that strips the blockdata and changes it into pigeon english. which is not 100% accurate/validatable by english(legacy nodes). but deemed close enough to ignore the issues it cant understand

this does not mean the blockdata is legacy compatible. it means a segwit CLIENT has to be used as a translater
bitcoin (network: the blockdata) is not compatible... it needs a translater(segwit client)

bitcoin WAS the blockchain. but now because the blocks are in sipa's prefered format that cannot be just downloaded from a torrent as is but needs sipa's codebase to be a filter/bridge/translator for legacy nodes..
this does not make bitcoins blockchain compatible. it just means core as a TRANSLATOR can pidgeon english the data to trick legacy nodes into thinking the blockchain is acceptable. yet legacy nodes cannot fully validate very transaction clearly, nor can legacy nodes relay this new data as is. thus not compatible.

again the blockchain is not the same as pre august and legacy nodes are not part of the relay network. thus not compatible

P.S
carlton banks is a fanboy not a codeboy. its useless asking carlton about code, so ask luke/gmax/sipa
also i do laugh at the lukes many backtracking statements(2mb bad.... 4mb good). but if you ask him a straight question. using words that cannot be denied as they are in code. he does eventually admit the truth. so be sure to mention how full archival data is no longer served via MSG_BLOCK, and he will have to admit things have changed and when they changed. thus admitting the fork of 2 directions (bilateral split)

Some explorers still show "unable to decode" for segwit addresses. They aren't clickable in blockchain.info

https://blockchain.info/tx/f808c5ec3e1cefd2d3a9153128344b4f043bb2507274115b4cb2d839a72b93fc

Anyway, recently Jihan was asked: "Why are the miners still supporting Bitcoin Core? Is it just a short term profitability play?", he answered: "Yes, exactly."

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DdeEbqxV4AEvOaJ.jpg

Is Jihan serious about BCH or he is using Ver and Craig as useful idiots to milk it while it lasts? or some or none of them are serious and just want more BTC?

edit: Well this is off topic tbh, I was too lazy to create a thread on that or search a thread for the specific subject, I need to go get some sleep now.

franky1, no sane Bitcoin developer will say that Bitcoin has "bilaterally split" into two. It was Bitcoin Cash that split into an altcoin, and the insane part of it is Roger Ver and his sock puppets believe and spread this misinformation that "BCH is Bitcoin".

I support that the Bitcoin Cash community have their big blocks and reenabled OPcodes, and I want to see it have more users. But ask anyone what Bitcoin is and they will say it is the cryptocurrency you call "Bitcoin Core".


If the miners truly believe that and would follow Jihan Wu to threaten to "kill" Bitcoin, then I believe Bitcoin will undergo a POW change as a last resort.

^ Bitmain sells miners - already to very different blockchains / PoW algos.

Their interest is clearly to sell as much miners as possible / diversify.

Well, the miners are amoral, they will do whatever makes most sense to their pockets.



Changing the hashing algorithm is probably not enough, PoW needs to be redesigned to refine the incentives. The proposed BetterHash BIP (or recent threads in Development & Technical about proposed PoW redesign) demonstrates the need is widely agreed upon. And it's important to the value of BTC that PoW is redesigned as a planned, staged, long term change to improve decentralisation of the mining network. The changes needed could be too disruptive if they are enacted on a "last resort" timeframe, there needs to be alot of discussion, planning and most of all, notice given to make it as smooth as possible.

Thanks for making the text bigger for easier reading. I will read them later and try to digest everything. Hahaha.

But I know what you are trying to tell me. Sometimes average people like me should put more effort to learn some difficult concepts that are easy for smart people. It also helps to be thick skinned, be called stupid, and question what the "smart" people tell you. We cannot accept everything you say as always "right".

if bitcoin core did not change from the legacy rules .. bitcoin core would still only be using only the legacy rules

core split from the legacyrules by enabling weight to get the 4mb weight. and bitcoin cash just increased the base block to get their 8-32mb block buffer

they BOTH changed at the same time..
2 networks.. 2 different rules compared to the rule pre august.  = bilateral split.

as to WHO orchestrated it.. you could argue that is was not core... but then in 2015-2016 Luke JR backtracked out of a consensus agreemnt by saying he was not part of core.
so you can play the social drama of who is or is not part of the core supporters all you like. but if you follow their salaries, you follow who they prefer to side with and who they play these silly social games for. you will see which side was which. and.. guess what

the UASF was not to continue legacy. and was not to create clams 2.0(unnilateral) it was to to be part of a mandatory planned consensus bypassing split where at the exact same block 2 separate rules came into play and the legacy blocks got killed off on that date

after all it it was a whole network of pools wanting segwit and a whole network of nodes wanting segwit.. it would have got activated in december 2016-june 2017.. but the only supporters of it were those tight to a certain team.. but ill let you play around arguing the team game social games as all i care about is code that got implimented without true consensus.

put it another way

a few years ago. some dude copied the code and set up his own network that continued a blockchain from a certain bitcoin block in a different dirction while bitcoin core changed nothing.. that was called a unilateral slit (simple fork) and that guy named his alt CLAMS

but the whole BSCartel of the bitcoin core team, Barry silbert blockstream bloq all converved the august plan where BOTH bitcoin cash began and segit began

learn #478558 its an important number
bitcoin core network starting rejecting blocks that showed a legacy flag instead of a segwit flag and banned nodes that relayed such
so yes core nodes/network did change too

again if nothing changed and bitcoin core didnt fork/go in a new direction. segwit would not have activated
learn about #478558

as for advocating to change the PoW. that is foolish
first of all it will affct EVERY POOL and EVERY block. causing block hashing time delays

also making it a mandatory thing like the core advocates done to get segwit initiated is not consensus. ther would need to be a period of time to get a real true no banning/no rejecting consensus vote.. and then if there is enoughh advocation then a long period of transition to allow both algos to be acceptable to the rules before finally cutting off the old algo when the hashrate of the new algo is good and strong enough to work alone.

P.S no matter what algo is chosen big pools will be inncentivise to pool their rsources to get the biggst slice of the pie they can. so no mattr what do not think it will ever go back to a 1 cpu 1 block situationwhere everyone with a laptop has an equal chance.

a PoW change will not destroy ASICS. as ASIC manufacturers will just redesign and release a new asic and strangely enough they will actually make mor money out of it. while costing average joe more money having to replace old gear.

a PoW change should only happen if there is a flaw to current PoW. eg if sha256 was broke

Activation of Segwit was an inclusive soft fork that did not kick anyone out of the network. There was no "chain split", so there was no "bilateral split". It was Bitcoin Cash that changed the consensus rules and split from the Bitcoin blockchain.


Who, what, where are behind now us. The network has Segwit activated. Blame the miners, they did it.


Well some people in the community say that it was BIP91, not the UASF, that had Segwit activated. But blame the miners, they did it.


Blame the miners, they did it.


I will not debate to the rest of this post to make everything more confusing. It was the miners that activated Segwit, not the Core developers who most of them were against the UASF.

If Core did have control then it would have activated in one week. Blame the miners, they did it.

OMG

turn it as you wish

Miners wanted compromise - the 2x only got them on board.


W/O - no SW today.

I agree, that might also be the correct answer, and it plays right in the point I was making. "Blame the miners, they did it". The Core developers cannot do anything, the community cannot do anything, but the miners did it. Was it then the fault of Barry Silbert, Jeff Garzik and the NYA signatories? Hahaha.

I'd say, many hoped that core d compromise as well - or split, if not

and we split

 >:(

What more compromise did you want. Segwit already increased the block size and did it safely through a soft fork. Did you want 32mb? Why? That would bring more problems on the network than it would solve.

Plus the "2x" hard fork's failure was more of Jeff Garzik's fault because he made a bad implementation.

blame the miners?

did you even wake up and look at the events of summer 2017
signal for segwit by august first or get your blocks rejected

lets word it differently..
open your legs in the next 10 seconds or get shot in the head..
is it then the womens fault for getting raped?

as for saying no one can orchestrate it.
lukeJR and samson mow USAF - lets call them the threateners
barry silbert (who pays Luke JR, samson mow, blockstream, bloq)
gangraped the women(network)
one part offering the rough painful option. another offering a slow consensual option. and a third offering a compromise if she doesnt scream she wont gt scrwed... well she got screwed.

it was all a three seashell/card trick game of fake choice.
i also found it funny that the propaganda machine was at such a level that they actually stopped reporting orphans
https://www.blockchain.com/charts/n-orphaned-blocks?timespan=2years
check when they turned off the orphan checker to hide it  (hint 21st june)
then check your history of what happened
this is where by the pretense of offering a 2x version.. it falsy gave cores segwit % a jump from 35% to above 80%
kind of funny how fast 2x discussion dropped away as soon as 'segwit's bip91 got the lock it needed weeks later.  but then you look at who paid th 2x shell and you see the picture clearly

and lastly..

it was a bilateral split. the rules of segwit ARE DIFFERENT than the rules befor the mandatory split
its literally wrote in the blockchain at 478559

oh and bitcoin cashs version of different ruled blocks created a different block hours later.. meaning core rules changed first in the timeline. although it was same block numbers.
both core and cash had the same 478558
then core changed.
core even got to block 478601 (7:05pm uk time) before cash even made block 478559(7:12pm UK time)
yes core was pushing out segwit only accepted blocks for 42 blocks before cash..
(i told you weeks ago to check the blockchain before rebutting....)


maybe look at block data before defending certain people.
it is getting obvious you dont care for the network or the protocol changes or events. you just want to defend a particular team of people.

P.S jeff's 2x implementation was never sustainable, not due to bad coding. but due to it just being a ruse to coax miners into being raped under false consent.
jeff is another guy paid by barry silbert.
its all one big kardashian drama of pretend in-family fighting to get people to choose which family member they love the most. but in the end its all the same family and the drama would have played out in one pre-planned direction no matter what

atleast rmove your lips from a developers ass long enough to read some facts and even some blockchain data.. because you are starting to become obvious you care less for the network and only care for the desires of a few paid men

back to the topic question

the blockchain format is not compatible backwards.

old nodes are not just relaying blocks along with everyone else byte for byte the same. they are not even relaying transactions the same.. the old nodes have been re-jigged around the network topology where they are just the tails/border/outer nodes of a network. that require segwit nodes to bridge/filter them data.

lukeJR, sipa, gmaxwell said it themselves.

also to prove it
if there was a fault with segwit nodes and they had to back date/downgrade back to a pre-segwit node
guess what.. problems would arise.
as their would not be any segwit nodes to translate(filter-bridge) the blocks
if people then accidently sent out segwit transactions whereby the network defaultd to non-segwit.. those transactions could be manipulatd.
(this is why although they pretend it was all soft and backward. the devs didnt release the wallets for segwit until after the mandatory split)
P.S.. by bing madatory and being a rule change requiring acceptance or rejected off the network.. that is not a soft fork. its a hard fork

and again ill emphasis it was a segwit block format that occured first in the timeline to change the concensus rule and direction.. which triggerd the rejecting of blocks and throwing people off the network

Before we start another long debate again, can you first tell us what are "bridging nodes"? Are they regular Segwit nodes that can communicate to non-Segwit nodes in a "language" that they can "understand"?

If there is a Github repository for "bridging nodes", kindly post it.