[Guide] Surviving the fork, or How to double your bitcoins (or save fiat)

[Come-from-Beyond]

A lot of people own bitcoins but only few understand how Bitcoin XT drama will unfold and what should be done to survive the aftermath. Both the sides (Mike+Gavin tandem VS other coredevs) are bad guys. They have economic (and psychological) incentive to push their plan through and they do NOT care about us. We, ordinary bitcoiners, should help each other so below you will find a guide how to save your money.


1. Move your bitcoins to a wallet controlled only by YOU. If it's a webwallet like BlockChain.Info it's still strongly recommended to download original Satoshi's wallet software and start downloading 40 GiB of the blockchain. If you leave your coins somewhere on the Internet you may be unable to double them once the fork happens.

2. Wait for the fork. Try to enjoy this time, the price will likely go down and down and down, but as long as it's above 50% of the price you paid you are safe. While you have nothing to do install software which works with Bitcoin XT.

3. After the fork find someone who owns coins not existing on the both blockchains and ask them to send few satoshis to your account, do it for the both blockchains. Those lucky owners of coins that don't exist on the other blockchain will likely be miners or guys who managed to get their transaction not included into the other chain. I expect that the market will react to the fork by selling such special coins slightly more expensive than their face value.

4. Find exchanges that work with different blockchains and send your coins TWICE by combining your original coins with coins obtained on the previous step. This will prevent a transaction on one blockchain from inclusion into the other blockchain.

5. Sell your bitcoins on the both exchanges for fiat and watch market reaction. Once the market decides which blockchain wins send fiat money to the corresponding exchange and buy bitcoins. If you are a skilled trader you may try to exchange BTC for LTC or another altcoin instead of fiat. Do it at your own risk, I don't dare to predict how altcoin markets will react to the fork.


PS: Once again, it is very important: your bitcoins must be controlled only by you when the fork happens, otherwise the wallet hoster will do the explained trick by himself and will feed you with a legit looking excuse.


Edit: Maybe it's not the best strategy, see https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1157679.msg12197629#msg12197629...

[1714183235]

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[harrymmmm]

yep. i saw this written here before and it sounds correct to me. Love to hear anyone's dissenting facts or logic tho.

[S4VV4S]

... miners or guys who managed to get their transaction not included into the other chain.

Well, I doubt that there will be miners that will give your the coins they can take advantage of.
So, why doesn't someone send his coins to himself with the hopes of them being included in only one chain?

[pedrog]

It won't work.

If XT is adopted, XT wins, there's no other chain, or at least there's no other chain with value.

You may find someone that lived in a cave for the past year and scam them using the abandoned chain, but that's not something you'll want to brag about, I think...

[Come-from-Beyond]

So, why doesn't someone send his coins to himself with the hopes of them being included in only one chain?

This may work too, but probability is very low because your first transaction will be kept in memory pool if not already included into a block. Good timing and extraordinary skills are required for such trick.

[Come-from-Beyond]

If XT is adopted, XT wins, there's no other chain, or at least there's no other chain with value.

This is very arguable, but I won't argue, let's stick to the topic without derailing it.

[kelsey]

It won't work.

If XT is adopted, XT wins, there's no other chain, or at least there's no other chain with value.

XT win lose or draw will never have value, maybe price v USD but it'll never be anything of value.

[Amph]

if you can double your bitcoin in any way i'm sure the price will tank to 50% of current price long before you can do anything

It won't work.

If XT is adopted, XT wins, there's no other chain, or at least there's no other chain with value.

You may find someone that lived in a cave for the past year and scam them using the abandoned chain, but that's not something you'll want to brag about, I think...

what happen if both chain hold 50% of the network? it's like having a bitcoin with half the network and a new altcoin that want to be bitcoin 2.0

[pedrog]

if you can double your bitcoin in any way i'm sure the price will tank to 50% of current price long before you can do anything

It won't work.

If XT is adopted, XT wins, there's no other chain, or at least there's no other chain with value.

You may find someone that lived in a cave for the past year and scam them using the abandoned chain, but that's not something you'll want to brag about, I think...

what happen if both chain hold 50% of the network?, it's like having a bitcoin with half the network and a new altcoin that want to be bitcoin 2.0

Fork doesn't occur under those conditions.

People's choice will be clear and every service will update software in proper time if a fork does occur..

[Come-from-Beyond]

if you can double your bitcoin in any way i'm sure the price will tank to 50% of current price long before you can do anything

In this case a rational person will do as written in the guide to save as much money as possible.

[Come-from-Beyond]

Fork doesn't occur under those conditions.

People's choice will be clear and every service will update software in proper time if a fork does occur..

There is no way to know if a miner really supports Bitcoin XT or just pretends so to give a lesson to the tandem and to show that "one does not simply mess with the blockchain" and future attempts will fail too.

[pedrog]

Fork doesn't occur under those conditions.

People's choice will be clear and every service will update software in proper time if a fork does occur..

There is no way to know if a miner really supports Bitcoin XT or just pretends so to give a lesson to the tandem and to show that "one does not simply mess with the blockchain" and future attempts will fail too.

Well, then a fork does not occur, no problem...

[Come-from-Beyond]

Well, then a fork does not occur, no problem...

It will occur in this scenario and some miners will be mining Bitcoin while the others will be mining Bitcoin XT. Those who pick the right side will get increased income during some period of time.

[harrymmmm]

Fork doesn't occur under those conditions.

People's choice will be clear and every service will update software in proper time if a fork does occur..

There is no way to know if a miner really supports Bitcoin XT or just pretends so to give a lesson to the tandem and to show that "one does not simply mess with the blockchain" and future attempts will fail too.

Well, then a fork does not occur, no problem...

Wut?
If they say they vote for xt, a fork will occur.
Then they don't actually mine big blocks....

[pedrog]

Well, then a fork does not occur, no problem...

It will occur in this scenario and some miners will be mining Bitcoin while the others will be mining Bitcoin XT. Those who pick the right side will get increased income during some period of time.

Well, in that case that's an issue that has to be sorted out before the deadline.

Is there a proposal on how to prevent such attack?

[harrymmmm]

It won't work.

If XT is adopted, XT wins, there's no other chain, or at least there's no other chain with value.

You may find someone that lived in a cave for the past year and scam them using the abandoned chain, but that's not something you'll want to brag about, I think...

Since the losing chain value doesn't drop to $0 in 0 seconds, there's a chaotic time during which the op's scenario may unfold.

[Lauda]

It won't work.

If XT is adopted, XT wins, there's no other chain, or at least there's no other chain with value.

You may find someone that lived in a cave for the past year and scam them using the abandoned chain, but that's not something you'll want to brag about, I think...

It will work. That would be the case of reaching complete consensus with the economic majority.
AFAIK 75% (needed by XT) will cause a noticeable split, and thus this can be achieved. The guide is sound, and should work.

[harrymmmm]

yep. i saw this written here before and it sounds correct to me. Love to hear anyone's dissenting facts or logic tho.

So far ... not much thought happening here.

The question in my mind is: how do you get coins on exactly one chain immediately after the first big block is mined?
Remember the coinbase coins can't be used until 100 blocks have passed. Anyone who can make this work sooner will spend their coins twice.

[Come-from-Beyond]

Well, in that case that's an issue that has to be sorted out before the deadline.

Is there a proposal on how to prevent such attack?

No.

[Come-from-Beyond]

The question in my mind is: how do you get coins on exactly one chain immediately after the first big block is mined?

You need to generate a lot of low-fee transactions that will be included into 1+ MiB blocks of XT but won't be included into the original Bitcoin. Once you get at least one such transaction confirmed in XT you need to generate a block with a contradicting transaction in Bitcoin. Only pool owners can do such the trick with high reliability. More info is available on http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/4942/what-is-a-finney-attack. Obviously, it's almost impossible to do that right after the first block.