A Core Defense Strategy

[Westin Landon Cox]

In case you missed it  Hearn's Bitcoin XT is out. If it gets 75% of the hashing power, it will fork away from the Core chain. Part of their argument is that if this happens, everyone who is against XT will surrender and abandon the Core chain.

In June I posted a topic analyzing the possibilities for the Core chain to continue with a minority of the hashing power:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1097608
tldr: It's doable, but difficult.

An interesting counteroffensive is "Not XT":
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1154520.0
It's a client that pretends to be for the fork when it actually isn't. The idea is that when the fork happens, the XT fork will actually have less than 75% hashing power. Presumably Core would have enough hashing power to survive, and possibly even enough to outrun the XT chain.

The "Not XT" fork gave me another idea for a counteroffensive. There could be a "Core Defense" fork. I'll call it Bitcoin CD, or just CD. This fork would not vote for XT, but would keep up with the votes for XT. If the 75% threshold is met, CD will respond by dropping the difficulty by a large amount (perhaps after or during the 2 week XT grace period). For example, there could be a one time difficulty drop so that the CD chain could easily continue with only 5% of the hashing power.

If such a Bitcoin-CD fork were created and deployed, then it changes the dynamic of the votes for XT. Right now people are voting for XT under the assumption that it will kill the Core chain. If CD got even a very small percentage of mining support, it would make it clear that if XT reaches 75%, then there will definitely be at least two chains. Most people agree that if more than one chain survives it will be a bad situation. This might incentivize miners not to help XT reach 75% in the first place.

(I don't think XT will reach 75% of hashing power anyway, but thought I'd share the Bitcoin-CD idea.)

[LiteCoinGuy]

WoW, Bitcoin Wars 2.0. Great Idea. 

[Jorge320]

"WoW, Bitcoin Wars 2.0. Great Idea.  Roll Eyes"

Hahaha, this just made my day...

[jeffthebaker]

Why would you actively work to divide the community? If the majority supports XT, why continue to fight the majority? Regardless of your views, one cannot argue that the wrong blocksize is more detrimental to Bitcoin than dividing the community. I dont understand how one can believe such stubbornness is beneficial to the network.

[DannyHamilton]

So, your solution to a forked blockchain is to fork it into three pieces instead of two?

XT will create a block that is bigger than CORE or CD will accept.
CD will create a block that is lower difficulty than CORE or XT will accept
CORE will create blocks that both XT and CD will accept as long as it can create the blocks faster than XT or CD.  If it can't create blocks fast enough, then its blocks will simply be orphaned and ignored on the faster systems.

[Westin Landon Cox]

Why would you actively work to divide the community? If the majority supports XT, why continue to fight the majority? Regardless of your views, one cannot argue that the wrong blocksize is more detrimental to Bitcoin than dividing the community. I dont understand how one can believe such stubbornness is beneficial to the network.

The majority voted for Obama. I'm not generally a fan of the majority getting what they want. Though I tend to think they get what they deserve.

There's no "wrong" blocksize (limit). There are tradeoffs. For people more concerned about preventing more centralization of bitcoin, small blocks are important. For people hoping for mass adoption, larger blocks are important.

I don't consider myself as someone actively working to divide the community. The XT threat was an announcement that divorce papers might be served. They've now been served. I'm part of the response. The "community" is already divided. We want different things out of Bitcoin. I'm open to options that would make the divorce less messy.

[Alley]

Stupid idea

[meono]

Why would you actively work to divide the community? If the majority supports XT, why continue to fight the majority? Regardless of your views, one cannot argue that the wrong blocksize is more detrimental to Bitcoin than dividing the community. I dont understand how one can believe such stubbornness is beneficial to the network.

The majority voted for Obama. I'm not generally a fan of the majority getting what they want. Though I tend to think they get what they deserve.

There's no "wrong" blocksize (limit). There are tradeoffs. For people more concerned about preventing more centralization of bitcoin, small blocks are important. For people hoping for mass adoption, larger blocks are important.

I don't consider myself as someone actively working to divide the community. The XT threat was an announcement that divorce papers might be served. They've now been served. I'm part of the response. The "community" is already divided. We want different things out of Bitcoin. I'm open to options that would make the divorce less messy.

No offense, but i think your brain can be much more useful for something else.

Dont let emotion and FUD destroy you. I feel sad for you.

[Westin Landon Cox]

So, your solution to a forked blockchain is to fork it into three pieces instead of two?

XT will create a block that is bigger than CORE or CD will accept.
CD will create a block that is lower difficulty than CORE or XT will accept
CORE will create blocks that both XT and CD will accept as long as it can create the blocks faster than XT or CD.  If it can't create blocks fast enough, then its blocks will simply be orphaned and ignored on the faster systems.

Yes. And I know from reading your posts here that you technically understand what I'm suggesting. Your summary here is perfect.

CD would be a strategic move to discourage people from voting for XT. The existence of CD would make it less likely that CORE would survive if it's a competition between XT, CD and CORE. However, CD would make it clear beforehand that XT will not be the only surviving chain. Since having more than once surviving chain is considered to be an unacceptable outcome by many people, this makes people less likely to vote for XT. The consequence? CORE survives. The intended outcome.

[Westin Landon Cox]

Why would you actively work to divide the community? If the majority supports XT, why continue to fight the majority? Regardless of your views, one cannot argue that the wrong blocksize is more detrimental to Bitcoin than dividing the community. I dont understand how one can believe such stubbornness is beneficial to the network.

The majority voted for Obama. I'm not generally a fan of the majority getting what they want. Though I tend to think they get what they deserve.

There's no "wrong" blocksize (limit). There are tradeoffs. For people more concerned about preventing more centralization of bitcoin, small blocks are important. For people hoping for mass adoption, larger blocks are important.

I don't consider myself as someone actively working to divide the community. The XT threat was an announcement that divorce papers might be served. They've now been served. I'm part of the response. The "community" is already divided. We want different things out of Bitcoin. I'm open to options that would make the divorce less messy.

No offense, but i think your brain can be much more useful for something else.

Dont let emotion and FUD destroy you. I feel sad for you.

Sorry if my comment about Obama upset you. I know how much gay men fantasize about him. Bringing Obama up was really off topic, Adam Allcocks, and I apologize.

[meono]

Why would you actively work to divide the community? If the majority supports XT, why continue to fight the majority? Regardless of your views, one cannot argue that the wrong blocksize is more detrimental to Bitcoin than dividing the community. I dont understand how one can believe such stubbornness is beneficial to the network.

The majority voted for Obama. I'm not generally a fan of the majority getting what they want. Though I tend to think they get what they deserve.

There's no "wrong" blocksize (limit). There are tradeoffs. For people more concerned about preventing more centralization of bitcoin, small blocks are important. For people hoping for mass adoption, larger blocks are important.

I don't consider myself as someone actively working to divide the community. The XT threat was an announcement that divorce papers might be served. They've now been served. I'm part of the response. The "community" is already divided. We want different things out of Bitcoin. I'm open to options that would make the divorce less messy.

No offense, but i think your brain can be much more useful for something else.

Dont let emotion and FUD destroy you. I feel sad for you.

Sorry if my comment about Obama upset you. I know how much gay men fantasize about him. Bringing Obama up was really off topic, Adam Allcocks, and I apologize.

OMG.... guys help me out...... I laughed so hard.

Can someone put this nicely for him? I need a break from laughing

[knight22]

What about implementing Core in a way that better serves the market than XT? Sounds fair doesn't it?

[jeffthebaker]

Why would you actively work to divide the community? If the majority supports XT, why continue to fight the majority? Regardless of your views, one cannot argue that the wrong blocksize is more detrimental to Bitcoin than dividing the community. I dont understand how one can believe such stubbornness is beneficial to the network.

The majority voted for Obama. I'm not generally a fan of the majority getting what they want. Though I tend to think they get what they deserve.

There's no "wrong" blocksize (limit). There are tradeoffs. For people more concerned about preventing more centralization of bitcoin, small blocks are important. For people hoping for mass adoption, larger blocks are important.

I don't consider myself as someone actively working to divide the community. The XT threat was an announcement that divorce papers might be served. They've now been served. I'm part of the response. The "community" is already divided. We want different things out of Bitcoin. I'm open to options that would make the divorce less messy.

Bitcoin's strength and value are an outcome of the community. With a shrinking community, Bitcoin dies. I don't see why anyone who considers themselves a Bitcoiner would conciously work to shrink the community.

[Westin Landon Cox]

What about implementing Core in a way that better serves the market than XT? Sounds fair doesn't it?

I'm happy with Core and with its development process. Somewhat bigger blocks probably will be included in Core when the time is right. If people want more tps now, there are already alt coins that can serve that demand.

[Westin Landon Cox]

Bitcoin's strength and value are an outcome of the community. With a shrinking community, Bitcoin dies. I don't see why anyone who considers themselves a Bitcoiner would conciously work to shrink the community.

The community will shrink regardless of the outcome of this divorce. Now, those who support XT may be able to build an even bigger community, but it won't be with the people who wanted a decentralized permissionless cryptocurrency out of the control of governments.

[knight22]

Comparing bitcoin with politic is flawed. There is nothing to enforce a president to not lie and achieve their promises. Bitcoin is code and will achieve rigorously what has been coded.

[not altcoin hitler]

In case you missed it  Hearn's Bitcoin XT is out. If it gets 75% of the hashing power, it will fork away from the Core chain. Part of their argument is that if this happens, everyone who is against XT will surrender and abandon the Core chain.

In June I posted a topic analyzing the possibilities for the Core chain to continue with a minority of the hashing power:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1097608
tldr: It's doable, but difficult.

An interesting counteroffensive is "Not XT":
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1154520.0
It's a client that pretends to be for the fork when it actually isn't. The idea is that when the fork happens, the XT fork will actually have less than 75% hashing power. Presumably Core would have enough hashing power to survive, and possibly even enough to outrun the XT chain.

The "Not XT" fork gave me another idea for a counteroffensive. There could be a "Core Defense" fork. I'll call it Bitcoin CD, or just CD. This fork would not vote for XT, but would keep up with the votes for XT. If the 75% threshold is met, CD will respond by dropping the difficulty by a large amount (perhaps after or during the 2 week XT grace period). For example, there could be a one time difficulty drop so that the CD chain could easily continue with only 5% of the hashing power.

If such a Bitcoin-CD fork were created and deployed, then it changes the dynamic of the votes for XT. Right now people are voting for XT under the assumption that it will kill the Core chain. If CD got even a very small percentage of mining support, it would make it clear that if XT reaches 75%, then there will definitely be at least two chains. Most people agree that if more than one chain survives it will be a bad situation. This might incentivize miners not to help XT reach 75% in the first place.

(I don't think XT will reach 75% of hashing power anyway, but thought I'd share the Bitcoin-CD idea.)

This is great. I think core taking steps to protect itself is the way to go. Great work, guys. The idea of CD difficulty drop is also a good one. This is important work to make core defensible.

[knight22]

In case you missed it   Hearn's Bitcoin XT is out. If it gets 75% of the hashing power, it will fork away from the Core chain. Part of their argument is that if this happens, everyone who is against XT will surrender and abandon the Core chain.

In June I posted a topic analyzing the possibilities for the Core chain to continue with a minority of the hashing power:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1097608
tldr: It's doable, but difficult.

An interesting counteroffensive is "Not XT":
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1154520.0
It's a client that pretends to be for the fork when it actually isn't. The idea is that when the fork happens, the XT fork will actually have less than 75% hashing power. Presumably Core would have enough hashing power to survive, and possibly even enough to outrun the XT chain.

The "Not XT" fork gave me another idea for a counteroffensive. There could be a "Core Defense" fork. I'll call it Bitcoin CD, or just CD. This fork would not vote for XT, but would keep up with the votes for XT. If the 75% threshold is met, CD will respond by dropping the difficulty by a large amount (perhaps after or during the 2 week XT grace period). For example, there could be a one time difficulty drop so that the CD chain could easily continue with only 5% of the hashing power.

If such a Bitcoin-CD fork were created and deployed, then it changes the dynamic of the votes for XT. Right now people are voting for XT under the assumption that it will kill the Core chain. If CD got even a very small percentage of mining support, it would make it clear that if XT reaches 75%, then there will definitely be at least two chains. Most people agree that if more than one chain survives it will be a bad situation. This might incentivize miners not to help XT reach 75% in the first place.

(I don't think XT will reach 75% of hashing power anyway, but thought I'd share the Bitcoin-CD idea.)

This is great. I think core taking steps to protect itself is the way to go. Great work, guys. The idea of CD difficulty drop is also a good one. This is important work to make core defensible.

I don't see why defend Core if Core better serves the needs of the market. Can you enlighten me?

Someone?

[Westin Landon Cox]

I don't see why defend Core if Core XT better serves the needs of the market. Can you enlighten me?

Someone?

There are different markets that have different needs. If the intended market is mainstream online payments, PayPal and Visa already serve this market quite well.

[knight22]

I don't see why defend Core if Core XT better serves the needs of the market. Can you enlighten me?

Someone?

There are different markets that have different needs. If the intended market is mainstream online payments, PayPal and Visa already serve this market quite well.

The same is true with XT indeed but mainstream adoption of bitcoin have always been part of the plan. If you want a niche coin there are plenty of them out there. Big players that have invested millions in bitcoin related companies are on the side of mainstream adoption and XT has made the first move in that direction.