Gavin announcement explanation please.

[redsn0w]

A worst case scenario:

Half of the merchants/miners/users still use the bitcoin-qt, work on original chain; another half of the merchants/miners/users upgraded to bitcoin-xt and work on the new xt chain

Pre-fork coins can be spent on both chain, which means the total coin supply becomes 42 million if you count both chains, then price of the coins on both chains will be cut by half

Hash rate will also be cut by half on both chains if the miners are 50/50 divided. Having a competing chain with almost the same hash power as your chain is a nightmare: It means your chain will be easily exposed to attack ( almost 51%, so the attack will succeed every once a while), double spending and transaction reverse will be daily event if the majority of the hash power on the other chain decided to do so. There will be hash wars which benefit none

So, like Jeff Garzik said, the hard fork is extinction level event, it should be carried out with fully reached consensus

If only the pre-fork coins can be spent on chain than you are wrong when you are saying "then price of the coins on both chains will be cut by half" because the actual coin in circulation now is 14'220'580 (https://blockchain.info/charts/total-bitcoins) so the price should not cut by half (but you are correct when you say the total supply will be 42 mln | 21mln + 21mln).


However yours is the worst case, what if it will happen nothing? And the majority of people will update their client?

[ArticMine]

...

"Doing nothing" is also a choice and that option has just as many supporters if not more than Gavins' poop.

It can be an option but one must be prepared to hold the XBT oneself  for a few years until the dust settles without moving the coins on the blockchain. The idea is that after the fork one's coins will be valid on both chains. Then one simple waits until the market picks the winning chain. This could very easily be a very wild ride.

[ArticMine]

@OP
I'd just forget about BTC for a little while and get Litecoin, Dogecoin and some other alts with good reputation. They won't be affected in a negative way by all this. Most people with a brain will choose that route. Won't be a mistake to hold some Litecoin in case the morons blow up the Titanic.

Also for some understanding look at this crap:


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=919629.0

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=941331.0

Litcoin is not the answer here, neither is Doge and most other alt-coins. Why because they also have the same fixed blocksize issue and furthermore those communities have done nothing about fixed blocksize limits in spite of the debate that has been raging in the Bitcoin community for years. In order to use an alt-coin as part of a hedge against the 1 MB blocksize limit on needs to spend the time, do the research and pick an alt-coin that does not have this issue.  Otherwise it is just jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.

someone has proposed maidsafe, but you can't even call it an altcoin, right now every alt is affected by this, because they are just clone, i don't know right now if coin that run with cryptonote are affected to, but certainly they are, it's not a problem for those alt because they have still ridiculous numbers of Transactions per second, that's why newbie like "hund" can't see the difference

Cryptonote coins are not affected because they use adaptive blocksize limits. https://cryptonote.org/whitepaper.pdf That is why I went with Monero (XMR) as part of my hedge, but please do your research first.

Edit: By the way many people in the Monero community are not aware of this issue, they see the coin as a privacy / fungibility coin.

[thejaytiesto]

@OP
I'd just forget about BTC for a little while and get Litecoin, Dogecoin and some other alts with good reputation. They won't be affected in a negative way by all this. Most people with a brain will choose that route. Won't be a mistake to hold some Litecoin in case the morons blow up the Titanic.

Also for some understanding look at this crap:


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=919629.0

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=941331.0

Litcoin is not the answer here, neither is Doge and most other alt-coins. Why because they also have the same fixed blocksize issue and furthermore those communities have done nothing about fixed blocksize limits in spite of the debate that has been raging in the Bitcoin community for years. In order to use an alt-coin as part of a hedge against the 1 MB blocksize limit on needs to spend the time, do the research and pick an alt-coin that does not have this issue.  Otherwise it is just jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.

someone has proposed maidsafe, but you can't even call it an altcoin, right now every alt is affected by this, because they are just clone, i don't know right now if coin that run with cryptonote are affected to, but certainly they are, it's not a problem for those alt because they have still ridiculous numbers of Transactions per second, that's why newbie like "hund" can't see the difference

I think Monero isn't affected by this. Maidsafe is also an excellent way to split your Bitcoin in dodgy situations like this. It Safecoin will never suffer from blockchain related issues.

[kelsey]

time to switch to litecoin, just to be safe  

[newflesh]

Wow there are 12 threads on this topic now (though it is a very important one). From the outside looking in it must look a little bit....chaotic.

I think any risk to the bitcoin ecosystem (including centralization) is very dangerous, talk of XT being in development for over a year are shocking to say the least. We need to have transparency, factionalizing bitcoin supporters into different groups is the type of game the elite play to control us. Surely there must be some middle-ground between the devs so we can solve this situation before it gets too out of hand.

[not altcoin hitler]

Wow there are 12 threads on this topic now (though it is a very important one). From the outside looking in it must look a little bit....chaotic.

I think any risk to the bitcoin ecosystem (including centralization) is very dangerous, talk of XT being in development for over a year are shocking to say the least. We need to have transparency, factionalizing bitcoin supporters into different groups is the type of game the elite play to control us. Surely there must be some middle-ground between the devs so we can solve this situation before it gets too out of hand.

Just get rid of Gavin and continue business as usual without a fork and everything will be fine again.

[LFC_Bitcoin]

@rjclarke the OP - This should help you mate, I asked a pretty clued up guy a question I think you'd want the answer to, no bull shit techie wizadry, just a simple answer investors like us need (The first part of the pic below - ignore the complicated stuff at the bottom) -



It seems if you have coins in cold storage you will be able to import them into either bitcoin client, core or XT.
Nothing to worry about it seems mate, let whatever happens happen.

[rjclarke2000]

@rjclarke the OP - This should help you mate, I asked a pretty clued up guy a question I think you'd want the answer to, no bull shit techie wizadry, just a simple answer investors like us need (The first part of the pic below - ignore the complicated stuff at the bottom) -



It seems if you have coins in cold storage you will be able to import them into either bitcoin client, core or XT.
Nothing to worry about it seems mate, let whatever happens happen.

Ok, so cold storage it is and I guess just wait and see what happens. I hope we all come out ok on the otherside.

Thanks LFC_

I will ask though to anyone who knows....

Why do some say Gavin's idea may destroy Bitcoin?

What will people who hold thousands or btc do? Dump?

[Benjig]

Here's the nutshell explanation:

Gavin is going to make some critical (and necessary) changes to the Bitcoin code. Then everyone will join the new fork because that's the only thing that makes sense.

And that's a different coin? I mean, if I have Bitcoin, I will need to sell them and buy those famous Gavincoins?
Or those new updates and implementations will be added to the same Bitcoin of always..

If that's so, the next months will show some cryptocurrency life.

[redsn0w]

Here's the nutshell explanation:

Gavin is going to make some critical (and necessary) changes to the Bitcoin code. Then everyone will join the new fork because that's the only thing that makes sense.

And that's a different coin? I mean, if I have Bitcoin, I will need to sell them and buy those famous Gavincoins?
Or those new updates and implementations will be added to the same Bitcoin of always..

If that's so, the next months will show some cryptocurrency life.

I suggest you to read also this (other) thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1076316.0   there are a lot of useful information and I also in the beginning I thought some wrong things but now I have all the point clear in my mind.


2 different coin  <> 2 different chains

[johnyj]

The problem is also on exchanges

Currently all the exchanges are running core, if there is indeed a fork, and you can not convince major exchanges to upgrade to XT, then coins on the XT chain will be just another altcoin that can not be traded on major exchanges, which means its value will be similar to other altcoins

So, a fork is not an option, it involves too many impacts on every aspects of the bitcoin ecosystem

[CIYAM]

So, a fork is not an option, it involves too many impacts on every aspects of the bitcoin ecosystem

You seem to have forgotten the fork we had before (when LevelDB was introduced) that required quite a few mining pools to have to "downgrade" their software (the problem wasn't even noticed by most users apart from the FUD that happened then).

The proposal from Gavin would require that 90% of the last blocks would have to be of the "new version" that will support 20MB max. size blocks but understand that the bigger blocks won't be valid until that 90% figure has been reached.

So there is no 50/50 scenario here and there is no "two chains are going to be active at once" either.

If this comes down to a vote requiring that 90% of the recent blocks to have accepted it seems about as fair as it could possibly get.

[oblivi]

Wow there are 12 threads on this topic now (though it is a very important one). From the outside looking in it must look a little bit....chaotic.

I think any risk to the bitcoin ecosystem (including centralization) is very dangerous, talk of XT being in development for over a year are shocking to say the least. We need to have transparency, factionalizing bitcoin supporters into different groups is the type of game the elite play to control us. Surely there must be some middle-ground between the devs so we can solve this situation before it gets too out of hand.

Just get rid of Gavin and continue business as usual without a fork and everything will be fine again.

At the end of the day is us the people that control what happens to BTC. If you want the current Core BTC to stay, run a Core node, if you don't want to, run the XT node. At the end of the day the people will decide by consensus what is the preferred blockchain to continue with.

[tvbcof]

So, a fork is not an option, it involves too many impacts on every aspects of the bitcoin ecosystem

...
The proposal from Gavin would require that 90% of the last blocks would have to be of the "new version" that will support 20MB max. size blocks but understand that the bigger blocks won't be valid until that 90% figure has been reached.

So there is no 50/50 scenario here and there is no "two chains are going to be active at once" either.

If this comes down to a vote requiring that 90% of the recent blocks to have accepted it seems about as fair as it could possibly get.

I wonder if any of the big miners are going to fake version stamps to get the XT guys to jump prematurely.  That would be as funny as a crutch, and could be a way to make a ton of money.  At the start of the Battle Royal it is likely that the (arguably) ill-gotten gains could get lost in the mealy.  Or perhaps My Lai is a better term.

[StevenS]

Hash rate will also be cut by half on both chains if the miners are 50/50 divided. Having a competing chain with almost the same hash power as your chain is a nightmare: It means your chain will be easily exposed to attack ( almost 51%, so the attack will succeed every once a while), double spending and transaction reverse will be daily event if the majority of the hash power on the other chain decided to do so. There will be hash wars which benefit none

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it, the proposed change is only to the maximum block size. Therefore, blocks on the "old" chain will still be valid to nodes on the "new" chain. This means that if the "old" chain becomes longer than the "new" chain, the nodes on the "new" chain will accept the "old" chain as the current chain, orphaning the current "new" chain.

tl;dr: The "new" chain will only happen when 51% of miners switch to it. A 50/50 divide will keep the current ("old") chain.

Edit: I just read CIYAM's post above, which corrects what I just said. Please ignore.

[SebastianJu]

johnyj... i didnt think about that till now. Youre right. If both sides have similar fans than this could be really disruptive. I mean if you fork then you have suddenly double the amount of bitcoins. Normally you would say the forked coins have no value at all but in this case you will have believers on both sides. Each side will believe the coins will be worth 240USD (or whatever it is now). At the end price will plummet at both sides because supporters are split and the amount of coins doubled.

Great... exactly what we need.

Though it seems he only wants to go to Bitcoin-XT, right? No new fork is needed? (Edit: I see its only planned till now...) At the end it would be another altcoin. Prone to die.

For me it really looks like someone wants to stay in the light. Maybe even overtake bitcoin somewhat by making it "his" bitcoin.

Really a pain. So far i dont see that an increase is needed now, so that he has to make it instantly. Something has to be changed of course some day.

[iCEBREAKER]

So, a fork is not an option, it involves too many impacts on every aspects of the bitcoin ecosystem

...
The proposal from Gavin would require that 90% of the last blocks would have to be of the "new version" that will support 20MB max. size blocks but understand that the bigger blocks won't be valid until that 90% figure has been reached.

So there is no 50/50 scenario here and there is no "two chains are going to be active at once" either.

If this comes down to a vote requiring that 90% of the recent blocks to have accepted it seems about as fair as it could possibly get.

I wonder if any of the big miners are going to fake version stamps to get the XT guys to jump prematurely.  That would be as funny as a crutch, and could be a way to make a ton of money.  At the start of the Battle Royal it is likely that the (arguably) ill-gotten gains could get lost in the mealy.  Or perhaps Me Lai is a better term.

"Fake version stamps" are just one option available to Mircea and other anti-20mb counterrevolutionaries.

It's adorable how sweet, innocent CIYAM, etc. assume both sides will not try to rig the voting.  But we're going to see Sun Tzu's warfare by deception, in spades.

Like Pinochet, Mircea has the expertise, motivation, and resources needed to "disappear" Gavinista insurgents until they give up and stop forking around.

[kendog77]

My understanding of Gavin's motive is that the hard fork is purely ego driven. There's no urgency to change block size. He just wants to be dramatic and make his personal mark on it. But controversy, technical-wise, is that some Bitcoin users may have their coins lose compatibility with the new implementation. In a sense, it may be Gavin and Hearn's attempt to hijack the Bitcoin name and implement their own coin or make changes to the protocol.

Bullshit. Companies are making decisions on bitcoin right now based on the current 1MB block limit.

Imagine if a large tech company, like Amazon or Apple, were to put their full weight behind Bitcoin by promoting it and offering customers a discount to use it? I think such a move would almost instantly overwhelm the Bitcoin network, and these large companies know that so they won't do it until the Bitcoin network is ready...

What if NASDAQ or the NYSE wanted to record trades on the block chain? Again, right now that is a non-starter and would overwhelm the network.

The internet of things sounds interesting, but again, if IBM or Intel were to put their full weight behind it they could almost instantly saturate the Bitcoin network.

The 1MB block limit is already harming bitcoin.

If you see a very limited bitcoin future where the market cap is small, usage is limited, and people can run a full node on a POS 5 year old laptop with a slow DSL connection, stick with the 1MB block limit.

If you see a future where bitcoin is a worldwide currency with a much larger market cap, where the blockchain is used for smart contracts and to record stock market trades, and where bitcoin is the foundation of the internet of things, bitcoin needs to scale substantially and it needs to start right now...

The core devs need to reach consensus on a scaling solution ASAP before they do irreparable harm to bitcoin. Uncertainty around the max block size is already starting to cause the price to tank.