The vote that counts: Miners and Mike's worst case scenario

[alani123]

bitcoinXT has an embedded voting mechanism.

Here are the requirements for the BIP101 fork to be triggered:

• It's past January 11 2016
• 750 of the last 1000 blocks support BIP101

If those requirements are met, the fork would "lock in" and happen in two weeks regardless of the hashrate and blocks mined after that point.


As the above facts indicate, the miners are the ones with the ability to vote on if the fork is going to take place. Mike Hearn however, expressed his concern over this indicating that there's a worst-case scenario in the event that bitcoin users (and companies) want the fork to happen but the miners will not support it. Video (archive). His worst case scenario was that bitcoinXT's fork could start ignoring the longer chain.

I've broken down the numbers of miner's support for BIP100, BIP101, 8Mb Blocks, and regular blocks in the last 7 days*. You're free to make your own conclusion.

Blocks mined over the last 24 hours in support of 8Mb Blocks, BIP100, BIP101 and regular bitcoin blocks:


Source: https://www.blocktrail.com/BTC/pools 1 week (around the time & date of posting)
Pools and the block size they support (table stale until we're close to 1000 blocks since major BIP100 support started) :

Pool	|	percentage of global hashrate	|	block size supported	|	# of blocks	|
DiscusFish / F2Pool	|	20.94%	|	Partial 8Mb support	|	218 in the last 7 days (2 were in support of 8Mb)	|
Antpool	|	18.44%	|	Partial 8Mb support	|	192 in the last 7 days (53 were in support of 8Mb)	|
Bitfury	|	13.45%	|	Regular Blocks only	|	140 in the last 7 days (0 were in support of 8Mb)	|
BTCChina Pool	|	13.26%	|	Overwhelming 8Mb support	|	138 in the last 7 days (104 were in support of 8Mb)	|
BW Pool	|	7.59%	|	Only 8Mb support	|	79 in the last 7 days (all were in support of 8Mb)	|
Elingus	|	5.48%	|	Regular blocks only	|	57 in the last 7 days (all were regular blocks)	|
KNCMiner	|	4.61%	|	Only 8Mb support	|	48 in the last 7 days (all were in support of 8Mb)	|
21 Inc.	|	4.32%	|	Only 8Mb support	|	45 in the last 7 days (all were in support of 8Mb)	|
Slush	|	3.94%	|	Partial BIP101 support	|	41 in the last 7 days (4 were in support of BIP101)	|
Rest	|	7.95%	|	Regular blocks only	|	41 in the last 7 days (all were regular blocks)	|

Out of the total blocks mined over the last 7 days, the ones supporting bigger blocks make 31.71% of the total. BIP101 support is less than 1% of that totaling 4 blocks out of 1048. Miners that would stand behind Mike's 'worst case scenario' could only be less than that.

*Numbers may vary slightly as time goes by without an update. I'll try keeping it up to date.

Tables are the hardest thing to use in this forum. Theymos pls fix.

[AtheistAKASaneBrain]

I don't understand all the details but the big picture was (if i got it right) that it doesn't matter unless they hit 75% of consensus, until then Bitcoin Core is still the real Bitcoin. I hope it never happens, XT just sucks.

[nicked]

I just don't see miners ignoring the longest chain unless there is some very big monetary incentive. If that were the case, the rest of the miners would do the same, and then they would all be on the eventual longest chain.

[alani123]

Thanks to the kind person that privately sent me a better table through PM.

[Possum577]

You're right, this is the vote that counts.

My question is, where do I go if I want to see what the "tally of the vote" is up to on any given day? Is Jan 1st, 2016...I want to know how close we are to 75%, where do I go?

(Since www.xtnodes.com is currently not loading)

[alani123]

You're right, this is the vote that counts.

My question is, where do I go if I want to see what the "tally of the vote" is up to on any given day? Is Jan 1st, 2016...I want to know how close we are to 75%, where do I go?

(Since www.xtnodes.com is currently not loading)

https://www.blocktrail.com/BTC/pools

[adamstgBit]

how would an individual minner show support for the 8MB block?

and is this voting for  Core with 8MB blocks? i thought the battle was between Core and XT and thats it, whats this new seemingly popular 8MB option?

[alani123]

how would an individual minner show support for the 8MB block?

and is this voting for  Core with 8MB blocks? i thought the battle was between Core and XT and thats it, whats this new seemingly popular 8MB option?

The voting happens through the coinbase of each block. It's the text there that lets us see what each block is voting for.

[hodedowe]

I agree, I don't see miners voting for a dilution of bitcoin's worth. Remember the 25 BTC reward will be down to zero soon and when that time comes if mining isn't making good money from competition of transaction fee levels (open market) then there's very little reason to mine at all. That means no miners and that means Bitcoin is dead.  Nobody wants that.

[Kakmakr]

All odds seems to be stacked against XT to win this battle and the voting. They might have thought that they have the support but when it comes down to money, things get a lot trickier than what they initially calculated on.
The political incentive to do this is also not very strong, because most Chinese are against domination from the USA.

The thing is most of them seems to support 8 mb block sizes, and I was under the impression that Bitcoin Core did
not want to go that route now. 

[Carlton Banks]

More over simplification of the situation *sigh*

This "vote" does not determine the outcome at all.

What will these 8MB miners do if the fork triggers, but the users do not use it? Keep mining for fun, right? XTcoin exchange rate will be doing well....

[alani123]

More over simplification of the situation *sigh*

This "vote" does not determine the outcome at all.

What will these 8MB miners do if the fork triggers, but the users do not use it? Keep mining for fun, right? XTcoin exchange rate will be doing well....

Care to enlighten me, how are statistics a 'over simplification'. What's the complicated thing about the situation that I missed? Because the rules set by Gavin to trigger the fork are perfectly simple. And the adoption of his implementation for bigger blocks by the miners (which incidently are the only ones able to vote for the fork according to the rules implemented in bitcoinXT) doesn't seem as rampant as the still ongoing brigading over at /r/bitcoin.

[Carlton Banks]

More over simplification of the situation *sigh*

This "vote" does not determine the outcome at all.

What will these 8MB miners do if the fork triggers, but the users do not use it? Keep mining for fun, right? XTcoin exchange rate will be doing well....

Care to enlighten me, how are statistics a 'over simplification'. What's the complicated thing about the situation that I missed? Because the rules set by Gavin to trigger the fork are perfectly simple. And the adoption of his implementation for bigger blocks by the miners (which incidently are the only ones able to vote for the fork according to the rules implemented in bitcoinXT) doesn't seem as rampant as the still ongoing brigading over at /r/bitcoin.

What will these 8MB miners do if the fork triggers, but the users do not use it?

You're suggesting that the overall outcome and the triggering of the fork are the same thing. I would suggest to you that you are getting them confused.

[knight22]

More over simplification of the situation *sigh*

This "vote" does not determine the outcome at all.

What will these 8MB miners do if the fork triggers, but the users do not use it? Keep mining for fun, right? XTcoin exchange rate will be doing well....

As I said in another thread:

If XT reaches 75% you expect the old chain to be abandoned quickly due to several factors.

 - Difficulty will stay the same but with a 75% drop in hashrate so blocks will be mined every 40 min.
 - The difficulty readjustment can take up to 6 weeks.
 - There will be huge backlog of transactions.

For these reasons the 25% left won't stay on that chain and a complete consensus will occur and bitcoin will just move forward as it always did. There is NO economic incentive for any miners to stay on the old chain. Therefore, there is NO economic incentive for ANYBODY to stay on the old chain.

[Carlton Banks]

I remember that one knight, it's a poser isn't it. Watch.

[knight22]

I remember that one knight, it's a poser isn't it. Watch.

I'm sorry but I fail to see any economic incentive for market participants to stay on the old chain. So far, everybody who argue that the fork will split the market didn't came up with one economic incentive tu justify it so why would it happen at all?  Maybe you can enlighten me? I would really want to understand that argument.

[Carlton Banks]

I remember that one knight, it's a poser isn't it. Watch.

I'm sorry but I fail to see any economic incentive for market participants to stay on the old chain. So far, everybody who argue that the fork will split the market didn't came up with one economic incentive tu justify it so why would it happen at all?  Maybe you can enlighten me? I would really want to understand that argument.

That's a veritable novel of words you just put in my mouth 

[knight22]

I remember that one knight, it's a poser isn't it. Watch.

I'm sorry but I fail to see any economic incentive for market participants to stay on the old chain. So far, everybody who argue that the fork will split the market didn't came up with one economic incentive tu justify it so why would it happen at all?  Maybe you can enlighten me? I would really want to understand that argument.

That's a veritable novel of words you just put in my mouth 

Whatever.

I'm still waiting for an answer.

[Carlton Banks]

you will receive it  Be patient.

[adamstgBit]

BIP101 is finished

I'm still trying to figuer out excatly what this 8MB option is.