Yes, this was discussed in the main thread at
https://bitco.in/forum/threads/announcement-bitcoin-project-to-full-fork-to-flexible-blocksizes.933/

Difficulty for the trial was intentionally set low in order to test a fast block scenario that might happen if many people joined the fork quickly. In this test blocks were coming every few minutes and orphan/stale rates remained reasonable.

For the actual launch difficulty will be set higher to a level where an expected number of nodes joining would mine 10 minute blocks. Of course if the project became very popular we might have fast blocks until the next difficulty adjustment.

Since this trial is just a test branch the mined blocks are worthless, but it is fun to have mined blocks in your wallet even if it is just a trial run.

Hopefully this also incentivizes people to launch nodes/miners for the actual launch. If Bitcoin miners and Blockstream refuse to raise the 1MB limit and Bitcoin usage stalls, then some altcoin probably will replace Bitcoin. This fork has a reasonable chance of being that replacement option because it preserves long-term holders' coins, and also provides the option to CPU mine early coins during the fork.

So far the trial is working as it should. We are on block 403597 right now. My nodes are connected to 10 other nodes and a forked branch is successfully being built. Some blocks are being mined by my node, many blocks are being mined and sent from other participating nodes.

This was just a trial run for the official launch later next month, but so far everything is functioning correctly.

Yes, that option turns the miner on when the node starts up. The miner will run before the fork activates which is fine, it won't find any blocks since difficulty is too high but this way it will automatically already be running when the fork activates. After the activation block you should start to see mined blocks in your debug.log file. Depending on your CPU you might find a block every 10 minutes or so until difficulty re-adjusts at the next difficulty re-adjustment.

For this trial the DNSSeed contains 4 nodes known to be running the fork, so that is probably what you are connected to after first starting up. As long as you see at least one connected node with the subversion tag shown as "SatoshisBitcoinFullFork_PublicTest_At403562:0.11.2" then you will be connected to the forked network after it activates. Thanks for confirming that you connected to these 4 nodes, it helps to know the DNSSeed mechanism is working as it should.

Great! Welcome to the trial. The purpose is to monitor how the fork behaves, this includes everything from making sure the miner functions well with low stale/orphan rates to making sure the network partitions well post fork. Feel free to monitor your debug.log and report any issues. There have been several trial forks already without issue, but this trial is to make sure it works for others.

You can try running "bitcoin-cli getpeerinfo" to check that you are connected to other nodes forking, you should see at least a few nodes who's version shows they are following the fork before the fork activates. After the fork activates your client should start to drop standard nodes and only connect to forked nodes. The new DNSSeed should automate all of this.

Here is the current list of nodes running
https://bitnodes.21.co/nodes/?q=/SatoshisBitcoinFullFork_PublicTest_At403562:0.11.2/

The great thing about Bitcoin is that everyone gets to decide for themselves what Bitcoin should be, what constitutes a valid block and what chain to follow. This project is for people who want to give a larger block and CPU fork of the bitcoin main chain a try. People who disagree or don't care are not impacted and don't have to participate.

That said, the current CPU-only attempts were clearly done by people who have zero experience making hardware accelerated versions of software. Heck the Litecoin parameters were optimized for GPU mining, the memory size picked perfectly fit into modern GPU's core caches...

If you have VHDL or Verilog design experience we'd love to hear how you would make an optimized version of the current code proposal. That will help us make it better.

As a fallback, the official launch version of the forked chain will include mechanisms to require a POW change if the hash rate rises to a level where it is clear ASIC or FPGA optimization has happened. This will force a new round of user-led consensus to select a new POW to maintain CPU mining. We might even see multiple branches appear for a time until the market picks a winner, that is fine and the way Nakamoto consensus is suppose to work.

Thanks for listing the build instructions (and reminding people to backup the .bitcoin datadir).

Just make sure you are on the "0.11.2_PublicTest_At403562" branch in the github repo. It is the current default.

To double check the file "src/clientversion.cpp", it should specify "SatoshisBitcoinFullFork_PublicTest_At403562" as the version name. If you see something different you have a different branch as active and you need to run "git branch 0.11.2_PublicTest_At403562" to switch files before building. This branch forks at the 403562 height and auto shuts down after 10K blocks.

We now have 5 nodes on the trial fork.

Great! Thanks for joining the trial. Make sure you are on the PublicTest branch. We should see your node here:

https://bitnodes.21.co/nodes/?q=/SatoshisBitcoinFullFork_PublicTest_At403562:0.11.2/

Protection for a chain depends on the money that is being spent mining the POW. The hash rate or who specifically mines the chain does not matter, only that enough money is being spent to defer an attacker who would have to spend more money than the current miner set.

Yes, the current ASIC miners cannot mine this chain. That is fine. If the chain has value people will dedicate enough CPU power to the chain to support it. There is lots of idle CPU power at home and in the cloud.

This is also a user-led fork for users who feel the current Bitcoin miners are not moving fast enough to increase the block size limit.

This is an option for users who disagree with the artificial limit and which to participate on a larger block chain. I have already run tests on the main network, and the client successfully mines >1MB blocks and clears the mempool faster than Core....

I have only compiled the Linux version so far.

For the official launch we will release Linux and Windows installation binaries.

The code base is a direct fork of Classic 0.11.2 and has the exact same build environment. If you can compile Classic 0.11.2 for your platform you can make the Satoshi's Bitcoin version too.

1) This a modified version of scrypt was created by people with extensive experience porting software algorithms into both ASIC and FPGA implementations. Anything can be done in and ASIC, but the design used provides very little benefit over a lite-weight CPU core, it is likely the most cost efficient implementation will be a very cheap ARM core connected to a stick of DRAM.

2) The algorithm will be modified if/when needed to keep CPU mining. This will be part of the code base on the official launch version of the client. By forcing changes into the POW algorithm if needed, this lowers the benefit of optimizing in the first place since the time frame to gain a benefit is low.

This provides an alternate path for current Bitcoin users as well. All long-term Bitcoin holders start with their coins on the new branch, that is what makes this project / alt coin different from other alt coins. We have plenty of alt coins with different parameters. What we don't have is an alt coin that preservers the first 7 years of Bitcoin ownership. If you own Bitcoin's you will already own part of Satoshi's Bitcoin after it activates.

Yes you can see the nodes running on the main net here. The trial fork has not activated yet, after it does the nodes will slowly be rejected from the main P2P network and will partition into a new network.

https://bitnodes.21.co/nodes/?q=/SatoshisBitcoinFullFork_PublicTest_At403562:0.11.2/

A new DSNSeeder is used in the modified client to help nodes fine other nodes participating in the fork. If you build the client from the satoshisbitcoin repo everything is automatically setup to use this new DNSSeed.

Yes, there is a new POW that should be both ASIC and GPU resistant. A modified version of scrypt was used to overcome the short comings in the Litecoin and others implementations, these modifications 1) greatly increased the memory size used and 2) added a long sequence of random memory accesses which eliminate the effectiveness of pipelining needed to make ASICs efficient.

The code for the new POW and an explanation is here

https://github.com/satoshisbitcoin/satoshisbitcoin/blob/0.11.2_PublicTest_At403562/src/crypto/modified_scrypt_smix.cpp#L193

Some initial Q&A

Yes, there is a new POW that should be both ASIC and GPU resistant. A modified version of scrypt was used to overcome the short comings in the Litecoin and others implementations, these modifications 1) greatly increased the memory size used and 2) added a long sequence of random memory accesses which eliminate the effectiveness of pipelining needed to make ASICs efficient.

The code for the new POW and an explanation is here

https://github.com/satoshisbitcoin/satoshisbitcoin/blob/0.11.2_PublicTest_At403562/src/crypto/modified_scrypt_smix.cpp#L193




Yes you can see the nodes running on the main net here. The trial fork has not activated yet, after it does the nodes will slowly be rejected from the main P2P network and will partition into a new network.

https://bitnodes.21.co/nodes/?q=/SatoshisBitcoinFullFork_PublicTest_At403562:0.11.2/

A new DSNSeeder is used in the modified client to help nodes fine other nodes participating in the fork. If you build the client from the satoshisbitcoin repo everything is automatically setup to use this new DNSSeed.




This provides an alternate path for current Bitcoin users as well. All long-term Bitcoin holders start with their coins on the new branch, that is what makes this project / alt coin different from other alt coins. We have plenty of alt coins with different parameters. What we don't have is an alt coin that preservers the first 7 years of Bitcoin ownership. If you own Bitcoin's you will already own part of Satoshi's Bitcoin after it activates.




1) This a modified version of scrypt was created by people with extensive experience porting software algorithms into both ASIC and FPGA implementations. Anything can be done in and ASIC, but the design used provides very little benefit over a light-weight CPU core, it is likely the most cost efficient implementation will be a very cheap ARM core connected to a stick of DRAM.

2) The algorithm will be modified if/when needed to keep CPU mining. This will be part of the code base on the official launch version of the client. By forcing changes into the POW algorithm if needed, this lowers the benefit of optimizing in the first place since the time frame to gain a benefit is low. Also we will continue to learn on each iteration and make more and more ASIC/FPGA/GPU-resistant designs. The goal of the project to keep Satoshi's "1 CPU 1 Vote" concept a reality.

We are launching the Satoshi's Bitcoin project to create a full fork branch from Bitcoin with both larger blocks sizes and CPU mining, for Bitcoin uses who prefer to use a version of Bitcoin that scales to larger block sizes and who are tired of waiting.

All development work is complete & several test forks have been successfully completed. The public trial fork is scheduled for this Sunday at around noon eastern time US (block 403562 specifically). The actual launch will follow this test and activate mid-April. This will provide several weeks for anyone who would like to participate in the fork to setup clients.

To participate you only need to compile and start the trial client, everything has been setup to automatically run from there.

• Download and compile the public test branch “0.11.2_PublicTest_At403562” from github. The build environment is identical to Classic 0.11.2(link below).
• Backup your datadir, after the fork the datadir may not be compatible with the core client anymore
• Run bitcoind or bitcoin-qt

The project is a direct fork from Classic 0.11.2 and is on github here:
https://github.com/satoshisbitcoin/satoshisbitcoin/tree/0.11.2_PublicTest_At403562

You can compare all code changes from Classic 0.11.2 here:
https://github.com/bitcoinclassic/bitcoinclassic/compare/0.11.2...satoshisbitcoin:0.11.2_PublicTest_At403562

There is zero risk to participate and you are able to run a true full node that mines blocks at home again for fun. If the project does not take off there is nothing lost, but if it does you have the chance to mine early adopter blocks. The main thread for the project is here:
https://bitco.in/forum/threads/announcement-bitcoin-project-to-full-fork-to-flexible-blocksizes.933/

This full fork provides an option for Bitcoin users who want to follow Satoshi’s vision of a global peer-to-peer currency that is accessible and usable by everyone. Currently a large number of Bitcoin users want to use a version of Bitcoin that scales as originally intended, but have no option to do. The project is opt-in and only users who want to follow this new branch will do so, users who prefer to stay on the current branch will not be affected.

Why a full fork?

Bitcoin was designed by Satoshi as a global peer-to-peer currency accessible and usable by everyone with instantaneous low cost transactions. This vision was clearly laid out in the Bitcoin white paper, widely understood and agreed by all users and advertised as the vision on the bitcoin.org website and all Bitcoin related forums and websites since 2009.

Despite this clear vision, Bitcoin is now being artificially constrained to low transaction throughputs well below what the Bitcoin network is capable of supporting. User demand has now reached these artificial constrains and many Bitcoin users are no longer able to use the network and are being denied access.

This artificial change is best described by one of the primary early Bitcoin developers since 2010 in the link below. The reasons are complex but revolve around centralized control. A single company who’s business model develops off-chain solutions now controls Bitcoin development and due to electricity cost advantages mining is no longer performed by the broad user community but by a small number of individuals. As a result, despite the fact that a large majority of Bitcoin users clearly want to scale Bitcoin, those who have taken control refuse to do so. https://medium.com/@octskyward/the-resolution-of-the-bitcoin-experiment-dabb30201f7

However the strength of Satoshi’s design is users are in control of the system. Any individual user or group of users are able to decide for themselves what Bitcoin should be and which set of rules reflect their preferences. Because of this it is impossible for Bitcoin to ever be centrally controlled, as long as users are able to define for themselves which version of Bitcoin is optimal.

Additionally, it is hoped that this effort will demonstrate how users are in control of Bitcoin and kick-start multiple different full fork options that offer different multiple options for users and the market to choose from, and that the best option will win in time. In doing so Bitcoin benefits from its open nature and will follow user preferences based on market demand.

What is the full fork and what is being changed?

The full fork will change the set of rules that define the block chain on a fixed date. After this date a new branch will be created that follows a set of rules that more closely follow Satoshi’s vision. At this point there will be two separate branches of the blockchain and two separate Bitcoins. One branch will follow the existing rules and a new branch will follow the new rules. Each individual user will be able to decide for themselves which branch to follow. The transaction history and BTC owned will be common on both branches up through the fork date, and after that diverge.

The base client used is Bitcoin Classic version 0.11.2. On top of this version the following rule changes will activate at block height 407232, which is the difficulty adjustment scheduled for mid-April 2016.

• The block size limit will be removed and replaced with a 2MB limit following Classic, and scale from there
• The POW algorithm will changed to re-enable CPU mining

I don't want to fork, will this affect me?

No. The fork is fully opt-in and people who do not opt-in will not be effected. To use the fork you have to switch your client from an existing client to the Satoshi's Bitcoin client. Only users who switch clients will follow the fork and use the new branch.

If you continue to use your existing client, you will continue to use the existing blockchain branch and this fork will not affect you in any manner.

Is this client ready?

Yes! Intial coding work is complete and several tests have been performed to demonstrate that the client can run on the main net, fork at a specific height, and start to build a new chain using a new block height and POW. Additional development to create a new seed peer list is needed and described below, but all the core functionality needed has been completed.

Further details are available in the github readme.
https://github.com/satoshisbitcoin/satoshisbitcoin

What he is really saying is he and Blockstream are blocking a 2MB HF even if everyone else wants one.

They keep saying a HF is bad if a small percentage objects to it.

What they are not saying is they object to it and so the 2MB HF should not happen.

Unfortunately Bitcoin is a democratic system.

The reason Todd and Blockstream want SegWit first is very simple.

LN requires SegWit in order to work, without SegWit LN is broken.

This is why they are pushing SegWit first. They know that if 2MB blocks happen, once everyone sees how easy it was it will become more difficult push SegWit onto the ecosystem. SegWit is a major overhaul and I could see many more miners and nodes dragging their feet on SegWit once they know the next 4MB change is easy too.

Just look at what happened after the last halving, there was a massive price run.

The 21M limit is not fixed because Maxwell is protecting us from changing it, the 21M limit is fixed because the majority of users are incentivized to keep it.

It is the same with the blocksize limit, the majority are incentivized to increase the limit, so it will be increased.

Toomin is stating a basic truth of bitcoin, bitcoin is whatever its users want it to be. And the beautiful thing about bitcoin is no one can stop that