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

[turvarya]

No, it doesn't.
That's like saying "Will LiteCoin reduce the amount of Bitcoin?"
If there is a fork, it doesn't care about the other fork, it's really just as easy as that.

Well, this doesn't make sense to me in the way I think about things.

If HYPOTHETICALLY at "Zero Hour" the hardfork occurs, and XT wins, but I subsequently choose to run my 1 million Bitcoins onto the old Core Chain - and if everyone seems pretty clear that those Bitcoins can NEVER EVER EVER go back onto the XT Chain - then it seems to me that the XT Chain just lost 1 million bitcoins.

So is my understanding of this flawed?  Or are you saying that my Core-Forked Bitcoin are still counted in the 21 Million XT Bitcoins - but just "lost".

They exist on both chains.
The only thing, that might happen, is that they never get accessed on one fork, if the people who have the private key, don't want to use their private keys on that chain.
So, you could call that lost, like if somebody lost his private key by crashing his hard drive or to keep up my LiteCoin-analogy: It's like when somebody thinks LiteCoin are much cooler and don't access his Bitcoin anymore.

[1714092771]

1714092771

[1714092771]

1714092771

[1714092771]

1714092771

[1714092771]

1714092771

[1714092771]

1714092771

[Lauda]

If there is a fork, than XT has already won.
-snip-

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.
-snip-

There will be a period of time in which this will be possible to do. If you think that everyone will switch (all miners and merchants) the first day after the fork, then think again.

[Holliday]

I mean, in that scenario, you are simply gambling.  Not a smart one either it seems, because if your Bitcoin is worth $200 prefork, and non-XT chain flash crashes to $10 - I hardly see the value in taking $200 Bitcoin, that will probably start soaring in the XT Chain once the drama is over, and trying to "Double" your Bitcoin by moving it to a Chain that has a $10 value - and you double it $10 x2 to $20.  Now that is investment genius.

OK - this actually made me think of something I haven't seen elsewhere.....
Let's assume the above scenario does occur - a fork where both chains survive.  What happens to the "finite number" of Bitcoin.  I mean, say you have 15 million Bitcoin at Zero Hour.  Then say XT Fork wins, and the vast majority of Bitcoins choose that chain.

But say 1 Million of those Bitcoin Holders choose the Core Chain.   Does that mean that the New Finite number of bitcoins that will ever exist on XT will now be 20 million?

NOTE:  I also still can't understand what is going to drive people to stay on Core IF XT Chain wins and takes off.  Because in that scenario there is almost a 100% chance that Bitcoin XT will start moving up in value, and Bitcoin-Core will start devaluing massively in the immediate aftermath.  I just am trying to imagine sitting there looking at my wallet with a Bitcoin in it, and saying if I take the right hand path I get $200+ and if I go left I get $20 - and then deciding to do the STUPID thing.  I mean - why wouldn't I just go to XT for a lot more value, then sell for dollars, then go back and buy TEN (10) Bitcoin-Core (now a minor fork altcoin).  I mean - I am thinking that is the path people would take???  I would.

Well, this doesn't make sense to me in the way I think about things.

If HYPOTHETICALLY at "Zero Hour" the hardfork occurs, and XT wins, but I subsequently choose to run my 1 million Bitcoins onto the old Core Chain - and if everyone seems pretty clear that those Bitcoins can NEVER EVER EVER go back onto the XT Chain - then it seems to me that the XT Chain just lost 1 million bitcoins.

So is my understanding of this flawed?  Or are you saying that my Core-Forked Bitcoin are still counted in the 21 Million XT Bitcoins - but just "lost".

Some of your comments lead me to believe that you don't really understand what the OP is talking about.

It's simple. If you have bitcoins now (pre-fork), and a fork occurs, and there is a market for XTcoins and bitcoins post-fork, you will have XTcoins AND traditional bitcoins equal to the amount of pre-fork coins you had.

Let's say you own 1 bitcoin now (pre-fork).

A fork occurs. There is demand for coins (and mining occurring) on both chains. So, we have two surviving block chains (for whatever period of time).

You will then have 1 XTcoin and 1 traditional bitcoin.

You can then taint one of your coins with coins which only exist on one of the forks. Let's say you get a few satoshis from block reward which occurred in a XT 8mb block (thus is not valid and does not exist on the 1mb chain). You can combine those satoshis with your 1 XTcoin by sending them to a new address under your control. This means your XTcoins can be safely moved separately from your traditional bitcoins.

If you don't taint your coins first, any transaction you make will be valid on both chains, so if you send your coins to an address which is not under your control, the holder of the private keys for that address will be able to get both your XTcoins and traditional bitcoins.

There is no risk for you, until you make the decision to taint your coins on one chain, and then exchange them for something of value. You will hold coins on BOTH chains until you take these actions. Even the tainting itself does not incur any risk for you. It simply allows you to craft transactions on each chain which is no longer valid on the other chain.

You can then decide to:

a. sell only your XTcoins
b. sell only your traditional bitcoins
c. sell both of them
d. sell none of them

Should there be demand for both kinds of coins (and it's looking like there will be), then the risk comes when you make the choice to economically back one side. You may sell all your XTcoins and traditional bitcoins become worth far more, or you may decide to sell all your traditional bitcoins and XTcoins become worth far more. Perhaps the community is divided enough that both chains will continue to exist far into the future and they will reach valuations based on the demand for either coin. Perhaps the split will cause a loss of trust in Bitcoin entirely and neither fork will hold their value. No one knows.

If the fork occurs when there are 15 million coins, there will be 15 million XTcoins and 15 million traditional bitcoins.

In order for you to control both of your coins, you need to first be the sole controller of your private keys when the fork occurs.

I hope this clears things up for you.

[unamis76]

If that person does not own coins on any existing blockchain, he can't send any coins...

Right, but it's not our case.

Then excuse me, maybe I did not understood your post. Maybe you meant coins existing on a certain address on only one blockchain/a transaction only mined on one chain? Either way, one blockchain will be dropped... But anyways, my opinion is just that, my opinion, not based on facts. Just an hypothesis, like your first post. Unfortunately crystal balls don't work, at least yet

[keepdoing]

If the fork occurs when there are 15 million coins, there will be 15 million XTcoins and 15 million traditional bitcoins.

In order for you to control both of your coins, you need to first be the sole controller of your private keys when the fork occurs.

I hope this clears things up for you.

Yes and No.  That does indeed fill in a very large part of the info gap I was unclear about.  But I am not sure that I trust the premise yet that the possibility that the coins can co-exist in both dimensions.  It seems to me that as soon as you spend a prefork bitcoin in a post fork world, it automatically vaporizes it's alter ego.   I understand that OP is theorizing about a way to allow a bitcoin to both exist and operate in both forks simultaneously - but I surely haven't seen enough other opinions to know whether this is simply science fiction fantasy, or real technological science.

It is indeed an interesting concept IF true.

[st4nl3y]

Interesting..

[Come-from-Beyond]

After the fork, you can get coins from each chain by mining on the pools that support each chain

No, if you withdraw mined coins you will get coins from other (pre-fork) blocks.

[jl777]

I mean, in that scenario, you are simply gambling.  Not a smart one either it seems, because if your Bitcoin is worth $200 prefork, and non-XT chain flash crashes to $10 - I hardly see the value in taking $200 Bitcoin, that will probably start soaring in the XT Chain once the drama is over, and trying to "Double" your Bitcoin by moving it to a Chain that has a $10 value - and you double it $10 x2 to $20.  Now that is investment genius.

OK - this actually made me think of something I haven't seen elsewhere.....
Let's assume the above scenario does occur - a fork where both chains survive.  What happens to the "finite number" of Bitcoin.  I mean, say you have 15 million Bitcoin at Zero Hour.  Then say XT Fork wins, and the vast majority of Bitcoins choose that chain.

But say 1 Million of those Bitcoin Holders choose the Core Chain.   Does that mean that the New Finite number of bitcoins that will ever exist on XT will now be 20 million?

NOTE:  I also still can't understand what is going to drive people to stay on Core IF XT Chain wins and takes off.  Because in that scenario there is almost a 100% chance that Bitcoin XT will start moving up in value, and Bitcoin-Core will start devaluing massively in the immediate aftermath.  I just am trying to imagine sitting there looking at my wallet with a Bitcoin in it, and saying if I take the right hand path I get $200+ and if I go left I get $20 - and then deciding to do the STUPID thing.  I mean - why wouldn't I just go to XT for a lot more value, then sell for dollars, then go back and buy TEN (10) Bitcoin-Core (now a minor fork altcoin).  I mean - I am thinking that is the path people would take???  I would.

Well, this doesn't make sense to me in the way I think about things.

If HYPOTHETICALLY at "Zero Hour" the hardfork occurs, and XT wins, but I subsequently choose to run my 1 million Bitcoins onto the old Core Chain - and if everyone seems pretty clear that those Bitcoins can NEVER EVER EVER go back onto the XT Chain - then it seems to me that the XT Chain just lost 1 million bitcoins.

So is my understanding of this flawed?  Or are you saying that my Core-Forked Bitcoin are still counted in the 21 Million XT Bitcoins - but just "lost".

Some of your comments lead me to believe that you don't really understand what the OP is talking about.

It's simple. If you have bitcoins now (pre-fork), and a fork occurs, and there is a market for XTcoins and bitcoins post-fork, you will have XTcoins AND traditional bitcoins equal to the amount of pre-fork coins you had.

Let's say you own 1 bitcoin now (pre-fork).

A fork occurs. There is demand for coins (and mining occurring) on both chains. So, we have two surviving block chains (for whatever period of time).

You will then have 1 XTcoin and 1 traditional bitcoin.

You can then taint one of your coins with coins which only exist on one of the forks. Let's say you get a few satoshis from block reward which occurred in a XT 8mb block (thus is not valid and does not exist on the 1mb chain). You can combine those satoshis with your 1 XTcoin by sending them to a new address under your control. This means your XTcoins can be safely moved separately from your traditional bitcoins.

If you don't taint your coins first, any transaction you make will be valid on both chains, so if you send your coins to an address which is not under your control, the holder of the private keys for that address will be able to get both your XTcoins and traditional bitcoins.

There is no risk for you, until you make the decision to taint your coins on one chain, and then exchange them for something of value. You will hold coins on BOTH chains until you take these actions. Even the tainting itself does not incur any risk for you. It simply allows you to craft transactions on each chain which is no longer valid on the other chain.

You can then decide to:

a. sell only your XTcoins
b. sell only your traditional bitcoins
c. sell both of them
d. sell none of them

Should there be demand for both kinds of coins (and it's looking like there will be), then the risk comes when you make the choice to economically back one side. You may sell all your XTcoins and traditional bitcoins become worth far more, or you may decide to sell all your traditional bitcoins and XTcoins become worth far more. Perhaps the community is divided enough that both chains will continue to exist far into the future and they will reach valuations based on the demand for either coin. No one knows.

If the fork occurs when there are 15 million coins, there will be 15 million XTcoins and 15 million traditional bitcoins.

In order for you to control both of your coins, you need to first be the sole controller of your private keys when the fork occurs.

I hope this clears things up for you.

Thank you!

The concept of tainting the XTcoins (and corecoins) is the key.

It transforms the bitcoins you have from dualcoins to an XTcoin and a corecoin, so there is some risk, but realistically both will trade at very close to the same value at the fork and diverging (noisily) from there

Now by splitting all your coins, you have to take some action, but this is a matter to just sell them for market price into something immune from the XT/core price. So let us assume an impossible, but simplified future price post-fork.

we will have winnercoin and losercoin, I have no idea which will be the XT vs core, lets avoid that debate and just call it winnercoin and losercoin. So we reach the block of the fork. Now all miners, exchanges, merchants, they are following this in realtime and immediately stop accepting/mining/using losercoin and at the next block the price/hashrate/usage for losercoin is $0/0/0. If you believe this, well, you are not familiar with the nature of markets.

What will happen instead is some sort of decay. From the split the losercoin will gradually fade away to some much smaller value, but probably always be worth more than $0 simply due to the latent value it has, ie ability for it to be used in transactions with people who dont know about all the tech details. this period of time will last for months and maybe even years.

However, what I predict is that the market battle between XT and core will not be any academic smooth curve sort of thing, but rather a chaotic high volume, high volatility price madness where one coin is worth more than the other, then less, then more. All during this time most businesses will probably be forced to accept both, which means they will be economically vested in both and if the miners can merge mine, without any real cost they can continue to mint both winnercoin and losercoin.

Now since this doubling is totally legit and enforced by both blockchains and people will do it, the value in them cannot disappear overnight. Otherwise the businesses that accepted losercoin will all go out of business and they dont like to do that. So we get vested interests in losercoin (or mass bankruptcies)

We might end up in a DOS vs Windows scenario. I think DOS lasted for quite some years before it finally died. OP has pointed out that this whole fork will make both winnercoin and losercoins into altcoins and there does not seem to be an alternative.

James

P.S. I am willing to pay a premium for some satoshis that can be used to taint my BTC.

[Mickeyb]

So I see the thread growing, so I would like to ask for a summary please. What have we concluded so far? Will it be, or will it not be possible to double your bitcoins if the fork happens and we end up with 2 chains?

[jl777]

If the fork occurs when there are 15 million coins, there will be 15 million XTcoins and 15 million traditional bitcoins.

In order for you to control both of your coins, you need to first be the sole controller of your private keys when the fork occurs.

I hope this clears things up for you.

Yes and No.  That does indeed fill in a very large part of the info gap I was unclear about.  But I am not sure that I trust the premise yet that the possibility that the coins can co-exist in both dimensions.  It seems to me that as soon as you spend a prefork bitcoin in a post fork world, it automatically vaporizes it's alter ego.   I understand that OP is theorizing about a way to allow a bitcoin to both exist and operate in both forks simultaneously - but I surely haven't seen enough other opinions to know whether this is simply science fiction fantasy, or real technological science.

It is indeed an interesting concept IF true.

Does bitcoin (both flavors) accept a transaction if it is invalid?
If a transaction has an unknown input, is it valid?
If that unknown input is actually a known input to one of the flavors, then we have a case where a transaction is valid on one chain and invalid on the other. Meaning you can use it on one chain, but not the other. It also means that on the chain it was rejected, the coin is still valid.

There is no magic, nothing other than the fact that there will be inputs that XT accepts and corecoin rejects and approx equal value to both.

See. You taint your dualcoin and now you have corecoin and XTcoin. The market is paying about the same for both, so just sell both, wait for the market to decide, ie winnercoin is 50% more than losercoin (that seems a safe enough threshold), then buy back at a 50% premium. Still you are ahead by a lot

James

[johnyj]

You can then decide to:

a. sell only your XTcoins
b. sell only your traditional bitcoins
c. sell both of them
d. sell none of them

Should there be demand for both kinds of coins (and it's looking like there will be), then the risk comes when you make the choice to economically back one side. You may sell all your XTcoins and traditional bitcoins become worth far more, or you may decide to sell all your traditional bitcoins and XTcoins become worth far more. Perhaps the community is divided enough that both chains will continue to exist far into the future and they will reach valuations based on the demand for either coin. Perhaps the split will cause a loss of trust in Bitcoin entirely and neither fork will hold their value. No one knows.

Very well said, I think we should hold a poll for these 4 options to increase people's understanding of the fork and its consequence

In fact that means the amount of coin doubles, which broke the promise of limited money supply - the biggest advantage of bitcoin. People will understand that when core devs have a conflict of interest, there will be 100% inflation in bitcoin monetary system... And people will start to drop the game. I guess miners would try their best to avoid that extinction level events by sticking to one side, which is what they are currently running. It does not matter how advanced XT is, a fork will kill bitcoin, so that is to be avoided at all costs

[jl777]

So I see the thread growing, so I would like to ask for a summary please. What have we concluded so far? Will it be, or will it not be possible to double your bitcoins if the fork happens and we end up with 2 chains?

well you wont be able to directly double your bitcoins, but you can split all your bitcoins into winnercoins and losercoins. By trading them close to zerohour, you should be able to get roughly the same amount for each. Good traders will be able to sell winnercoin for more than losercoin and losercoin for more than winner coin by taking advantage of the market chaos.

Now your single dualcoin is split into winnercoin and losercoin due to the fact that there are XT outputs that will invalidated a tx in the eyes of corecoin.

The problem here is that we will end up with miners mergemining both (unlike normal merge mining where they are getting some sillycoin, they get losercoin) and there will be double the volume of sales so the price of both will be hammered.

I would recommend to split your bitcoins into winnercoin and losercoin as soon as possible after zerohour, sell them (via limit orders) into something that will hold its value. then when one side reaches more than 50% value of the other in a stable way (ie not a spike) to purchase them. if you have the time, just make a ladder so that as one side gets worth more and more against the other you are shifting more and more capital into it.

Done right you should end up with 50%+ more of winnercoin vs the number of dualcoins you have

James

[jl777]

You can then decide to:

a. sell only your XTcoins
b. sell only your traditional bitcoins
c. sell both of them
d. sell none of them

Should there be demand for both kinds of coins (and it's looking like there will be), then the risk comes when you make the choice to economically back one side. You may sell all your XTcoins and traditional bitcoins become worth far more, or you may decide to sell all your traditional bitcoins and XTcoins become worth far more. Perhaps the community is divided enough that both chains will continue to exist far into the future and they will reach valuations based on the demand for either coin. Perhaps the split will cause a loss of trust in Bitcoin entirely and neither fork will hold their value. No one knows.

Very well said, I think we should hold a poll for these 4 options to increase people's understanding of the fork and its consequence

In fact that means the amount of coin doubles, which broke the promise of limited money supply - the biggest advantage of bitcoin. People will understand that when core devs have a conflict of interest, there will be 100% inflation in bitcoin monetary system... And people will start to drop the game. I guess miners would try their best to avoid that extinction level events by sticking to one side, which is what they are currently running. It does not matter how advanced XT is, a fork will kill bitcoin, so that is to be avoided at all costs

How hard is it to mergemine?
I dont think miners will have to choose.

How hard is it to choose not to go bankrupt? I dont think many businesses will drop one coin over the other, they will just pretend they are both normal bitcoins. we will just have some growing percentage of bitcoins that are split and thus dramatically increasing the coin supply. not overnight, but over a period of 6 months, we will probably get to where the majority of dualcoins are split, just via normal transactions tainting the dualcoins into two.

The people that understand this will be making a ton of money. the people that dont will be complaining about why bitcoin price keeps dropping

James

[johnyj]

So I see the thread growing, so I would like to ask for a summary please. What have we concluded so far? Will it be, or will it not be possible to double your bitcoins if the fork happens and we end up with 2 chains?

well you wont be able to directly double your bitcoins, but you can split all your bitcoins into winnercoins and losercoins. By trading them close to zerohour, you should be able to get roughly the same amount for each. Good traders will be able to sell winnercoin for more than losercoin and losercoin for more than winner coin by taking advantage of the market chaos.

Now your single dualcoin is split into winnercoin and losercoin due to the fact that there are XT outputs that will invalidated a tx in the eyes of corecoin.

The problem here is that we will end up with miners mergemining both (unlike normal merge mining where they are getting some sillycoin, they get losercoin) and there will be double the volume of sales so the price of both will be hammered.

I would recommend to split your bitcoins into winnercoin and losercoin as soon as possible after zerohour, sell them (via limit orders) into something that will hold its value. then when one side reaches more than 50% value of the other in a stable way (ie not a spike) to purchase them. if you have the time, just make a ladder so that as one side gets worth more and more against the other you are shifting more and more capital into it.

Done right you should end up with 50%+ more of winnercoin vs the number of dualcoins you have

James

From a value point of view, since a fork into two chains break the promise of limited money supply, it essentially killed bitcoin. I guess long before XT hashing power reaching 50%, the bitcoin value would already be single digits

[turvarya]

If there is a fork, than XT has already won.
-snip-

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.
-snip-

There will be a period of time in which this will be possible to do. If you think that everyone will switch (all miners and merchants) the first day after the fork, then think again.

I don't think, there is an economical incentive to keep on the weaker chain. I think, it will be settled by businesses, who want to make a revenue and they just take too much risk, when they stay on the weaker chain.
I don't think, it will be settled by ideological incentives, once the split has already happened.
So, the only interesting question here is, IF the split happens.
(And I think, all this "doubling you Bitcoin"-business is just a wet dream)

[johnyj]

How hard is it to mergemine?
I dont think miners will have to choose.

How hard is it to choose not to go bankrupt? I dont think many businesses will drop one coin over the other, they will just pretend they are both normal bitcoins. we will just have some growing percentage of bitcoins that are split and thus dramatically increasing the coin supply. not overnight, but over a period of 6 months, we will probably get to where the majority of dualcoins are split, just via normal transactions tainting the dualcoins into two.

I think they can not mergemine since they are mining on different chain by that time

The coins are doubled, however the ecosystem can not double over night, if suddenly the money supply increased by 100% but there is no increased demand, we will get a zimbabwe coin

[dasource]

Lets be sensible here ... if larger blocks starts to get more traction and lets be fair we already have 65%+ mining power voting for larger blocks (notice how I said larger blocks and not necessarily XT) then *business* like exchanges will prepare themselves to be on the right side of the chain (be it XT or whatever it is that supports larger blocks)

The interesting thing here which everyone seems to miss is that XT has started a process which the none-XT/larger block pro developers need to respond to with a solution. Miners and Exchanges (who seems largely in the larger blocks group) are not going to wait around forever.

Grab your popcorn and lets see how this all unfolds ... It is going to be interesting for sure.

[johnyj]

Lets be sensible here ... if larger blocks starts to get more traction and lets be fair we already have 65%+ mining power voting for larger blocks (notice how I said larger blocks and not necessarily XT) then *business* like exchanges will prepare themselves to be on the right side of the chain (be it XT or whatever it is that supports larger blocks)

The interesting thing here which everyone seems to miss is that XT has started a process which the none-XT/larger block pro developers need to respond to with a solution. Miners and Exchanges (who seems largely in the larger blocks group) are not going to wait around forever.

Grab your popcorn and lets see how this all unfolds ... It is going to be interesting for sure.

The old wisdom is don't fix it if it ain't broken. I guest majority of the miners will take a wait and see stance. Recent stress test already showed that even every block is receiving more than 1MB of data, the network still works well

[dasource]

The old wisdom is don't fix it if it ain't broken. I guest majority of the miners will take a wait and see stance. Recent stress test already showed that even every block is above 1MB, the network still works well

That does not work when you are trying to revolutionize sectors ... we do not want to stay in the stone ages

[johnyj]

The old wisdom is don't fix it if it ain't broken. I guest majority of the miners will take a wait and see stance. Recent stress test already showed that even every block is above 1MB, the network still works well

That does not work when you are trying to revolutionize sectors ... we do not want to stay in the stone ages

Banks stayed in stone age for hundreds of years and that's the reason they become the master slaveholder. Value is all about stability and integrity