Just wanted to post a sort of journal entry to myself here while this thread is still in the double digits of pages. Its truly an epic thread  

(Sorry if this sounds gay or whatever to you other readers, just move on if so. This is just a selfish "to me" post. You'll probably flame away though, and thats fine too. I understand the opportunity to)

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Alright Me, you're feeling a a bunch of pain right now dude. In pretty heavy, for you at least, at $560. Maybe you got caught up in the hype a bit, maybe the market is just over correcting now. Who knows. So many noises flowing through the news and forums right now. You thought you kept it as cool as possible while buying, though you knew this would be volatile going in. At least you only bought during dips, though there have been more and dips than you thought there would be. Maybe you should've considered early folks spending more of their winnings, driving the price down further.

Whatever. You've committed to riding this thing out. You've taking up learning to program because you wanted to be a part of this; You're still not good yet, but you'll get there. That whitepaper, that moment you understood bitcoin - its potential. Remember it set you back in your seat for days. The most disruptive technology you could imagine, other than warp drive, because warp drive would allow you to send value interstellar distances without delay, or so you tell yourself.

You sent one dollar in BTC to your brother today. He's across the country. It took three seconds. Sure, the time for the network to confirm is ten minutes, but even that is still fast, and three seconds is enough for you to transact with your bro or family members anyway. You didn't need a bank account and he didn't need one, yet you sent value. Almost instantly. For basically free (you used MultiBit, so there was a petty fee attached). Thats just not possible right now any other way. FFS, it takes four days for the rent from your roommates to reach you, and one will only write checks because wiring money costs $10 each time.

So, heres the deal, when you look back at this in a month, year, whatever, maybe it all went to shit, maybe you lost all you put in, maybe you're rich, maybe you're right back where you started. But you acted. You acted and took the chance on something you felt was revolutionary. All data pointed to eventual success, and you took the jump, believing that if the protocol remains healthy and uninterrupted, the product would eventually flourish incredibly. Maybe you missed something, but as far as you can tell now, its too amazing of a technology - universal decentralized accounting of scarce, unique digital assets.

If nothing else, you learned a bunch about economics, technology, (elliptic curves, holy shit!), are taking up coding, figuring out ways to start up a business around Bitcoin, and generally bettered yourself. It was a ride no matter the outcome, and you made the decision to get involved.


Cheers, Me

Three Hero Members helping out a noob! Fucking class act around here - even considering the trolls and the children running around...


Thanks fellas.

Never mind, figured it out.


Thanks again!

Thanks fellas. Makes sense. I appreciate the help.


Just a final clarification, please:


So, the cold storage/paper coins are safe because they've been accounted for on the block chain (pre-fork). Understood. Got it.

Regarding BurtW's response (re: "your coins get doubled! You get to spend the same coins on both forks"):

I'm assuming that if I'm running my node on Fork1 and send coins to another address in Fork1, that this will have no affect on coins in my wallet that are on Fork2.

Assuming I were to then run my node on Fork2, I would still control my coins in those keys which I had spent in Fork1, because these coins haven't been moved in this separate block chain. They're two separate continuing ledgers, so spends wouldn't be accounted between the two (and thus, its impossible to spend/send coins between the two). Correct?

Sorry if I'm not explaining it clear enough.



Note: I understand that in all likelihood, one of the forks would ultimately become the defacto, and the other would simply die off, as no one would be running a node on the lesser of the forks, rendering coins on the un-utilized fork effectively worthless. But my question remains, if for no other reason than as a thought experiment and point of clarification for myself.

Hola, Gentlemen (and perhaps Lady),

Is there anything I need to be on the ready for in case of a hard fork regrading my paper wallet stored coins? I tried searching around and figuring this out on my own, unfortunately, I need to raise the white flag and ask for help understanding this.

Basically, are my coins safe and still usable on the new fork in the case of a hard fork of the network? Is there anything I need to do to ensure that my paper coins are "bona fide" and accounted for on the new fork, or, since the transaction already exists in the block chain, I have no need to worry? My thinking is that forking only affects new blocks/transaction post-fork, so I should be good.

However, If I don't need to worry about anything because the coins are already allocated to my keys in the block chain, is there something stopping me from spending coins on each of the new networks, assuming a fork?


I'm assuming there will be a hard fork in the future (who knows when though), per Gavin's reasoning regarding raising the block size limit and just want to be sure I'm clear on whatever I need to do to prepare or execute on.



Thanks.