Bitcoin is Forking

[cryptothreads]

Mike Hearn:
https://medium.com/@octskyward/why-is-bitcoin-forking-d647312d22c1

Reddit: Bitcoin is Forked
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3h42cz/bitcoin_is_forked/


Maybe it should have read Bitcoin is FUCKED ? no joking.

[BornBlazed]

Maybe it should have read Bitcoin is FUCKED ? no joking.

It happens.
why do you think this fork is so scary?

[cryptothreads]

It happens.
why do you think this fork is so scary?

Honestly, I don't think its scary. I expected it and accept it. I was just adding some humor.

[LiteCoinGuy]

It happens.
why do you think this fork is so scary?

Honestly, I don't think its scary. I expected it and accept it. I was just adding some humor.

dont do this. noobs will be scared  


for the new people here: bitcoin to the moon? support bigger blocks (XT)!  


Why is Bitcoin forking?

A long time ago, Satoshi put in place a temporary kludge: he limited the size of each block to one megabyte. He did this in order to keep the block chain small in the early days, until what we now call SPV wallets were built (‘client only mode’). As seen in the quote above, it was never meant to be permanent and he talked about phasing it out when the time came. In the end it wasn’t needed — I wrote the first SPV implementation in 2011 and with my esteemed colleague Andreas Schildbach, together we built the first and still most popular Android wallet. Since then SPV wallets have been made for every platform. So Satoshi’s reason for the temporary limit has been resolved a long time ago.

https://medium.com/@octskyward/why-is-bitcoin-forking-d647312d22c1

[cryptothreads]

It happens.
why do you think this fork is so scary?

Honestly, I don't think its scary. I expected it and accept it. I was just adding some humor.

dont do this. noobs will be scared  


for the new people here: bitcoin to the moon? support bigger blocks (XT)!  


Why is Bitcoin forking?

A long time ago, Satoshi put in place a temporary kludge: he limited the size of each block to one megabyte. He did this in order to keep the block chain small in the early days, until what we now call SPV wallets were built (‘client only mode’). As seen in the quote above, it was never meant to be permanent and he talked about phasing it out when the time came. In the end it wasn’t needed — I wrote the first SPV implementation in 2011 and with my esteemed colleague Andreas Schildbach, together we built the first and still most popular Android wallet. Since then SPV wallets have been made for every platform. So Satoshi’s reason for the temporary limit has been resolved a long time ago.

https://medium.com/@octskyward/why-is-bitcoin-forking-d647312d22c1

Hahaha sorry didn't mean to scare people! Was trying to interject some humor in all this drama.   Yes, bigger blocks = to the Moon! 

[RoadStress]

Request for all wallet developers: Add the option to choose the fork in case of a hard fork!

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1153684.0

[cryptothreads]

Request for all wallet developers: Add the option to choose the fork in case of a hard fork!

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1153684.0

RoadStress  thanks for letting us know about this option in case of the hard fork.

[Hexadecibel]

Good. I've got my node up and running. If you're reading this and run a node, you should as well.

to quote Mike:

[Core devs] believe that the only mechanism that Bitcoin has to keep them in check should never be used.

Myself and many other early adopters and developers went down this rabbit hole because we wanted to support a world changing technology that takes power from the elite few and puts it back in our hands. The Bitcoin Core project is no longer aligning with these ideals.

[AtheistAKASaneBrain]

This means nothing until a hard fork happens and we are still lightyears away from the nodes needed for the hard fork to actually occur, so Bitcoin is still the same.

[knight22]

Good news. Was about time!

[smoothie]

This means nothing until a hard fork happens and we are still lightyears away from the nodes needed for the hard fork to actually occur, so Bitcoin is still the same.

How are you justifying your time claim "lightyears" away?

Do you always wait until your bank account hits $0 or EUR or whatever before getting a job to pay your bills? 

It's called being proactive.

[LiteCoinGuy]

thanks to some smart devs we have a plan for the next big influx of users.

[pedrog]

This means nothing until a hard fork happens and we are still lightyears away from the nodes needed for the hard fork to actually occur, so Bitcoin is still the same.

Yes, these kind of distributed projects and specially in how the bitcoin network operates everything has to be planned way ahead because it takes a long time for people to upgrade their nodes.

[coinableS]

Hang on, do we actually have two competing chains right now? Or is this just a heads up that there is going to be a fork in the future?

[smoothie]

Hang on, do we actually have two competing chains right now? Or is this just a heads up that there is going to be a fork in the future?

AFAIK there is no fork yet. The fork will come when the conditions of "consensus" are reached to create a > 1 MB block while the core clients create blocks 1 MB or less...that is when the fork starts.

[pedrog]

Hang on, do we actually have two competing chains right now? Or is this just a heads up that there is going to be a fork in the future?

No competing chains, if Bitcoin XT gets adopted by the majority there will be a fork and the network will start to accept bigger blocks, until then nothing changes.

You can learn more about XT here:

https://bitcoinxt.software/
http://xtnodes.com/
http://gavinandresen.ninja/
https://medium.com/@octskyward

[Amph]

Hang on, do we actually have two competing chains right now? Or is this just a heads up that there is going to be a fork in the future?

AFAIK there is no fork yet. The fork will come when the conditions of "consensus" are reached to create a > 1 MB block while the core clients create blocks 1 MB or less...that is when the fork starts.

basically we are only waiting that the majority will embrace XT, i would say hoping as a better word...

but if merchants are pro it and miners also, this should not take too long, i guess

[cryptothreads]

Hang on, do we actually have two competing chains right now? Or is this just a heads up that there is going to be a fork in the future?

I believe this happens after 75 % consensus from miners.

[coinableS]

Hang on, do we actually have two competing chains right now? Or is this just a heads up that there is going to be a fork in the future?

No competing chains, if Bitcoin XT gets adopted by the majority there will be a fork and the network will start to accept bigger blocks, until then nothing changes.

You can learn more about XT here:

https://bitcoinxt.software/
http://xtnodes.com/
http://gavinandresen.ninja/
https://medium.com/@octskyward

Ah okay good. I used XT a few months ago, it "felt" just the same as core. I went back to core though since it didn't seem like a serious project then. Looks like it's getting a lot more serious. Should be interesting to watch this unfold. Things might get bumpy for a while, but I expect everything to be fine in the long run.

[BitcoinNewsMagazine]

How do Hearn and Andresen profit from promoting Bitcoin XT? The fact that a full release of Bitcoin XT is now available does not mean Chinese miners will adopt; the large mining pool owners have already publicly stated they are against Bitcoin XT.

A reasonable way to increase block size has already been presented in BIP 100 by Jeff Garzik and open to vote. Anyone scared of hard forks should realize that any increase in the current block size will first require a hard fork to remove the static 1 MB block size limit.