The real disastor that could happen (forking Bitcoin)...

[iwasneverhere]

Bitcoin has had its share of problems (as so any innovation), but even thou not everybody is on the same page sometimes, when push comes to shove, it will be worked out.

[knight22]

Why on earth exchanges will stop trading? Most (if not all) of them support Classic btw.

Because they risk a "fiat loss" (i.e. "real money").

So if they have ended up on the wrong side of a fork they will actually go bankrupt.

I doubt any exchange is going to really want to "brave this" (so they will all just shutdown until a resolution happens).

Let's see if the exchanges are really going to publicly state that they will work on a fork (I very much doubt that any of them will do so).

Bitstamp and Coinbase already did...

[Lauda]

No data yet. Mostly vocal support from a majority of mining pools and the broad industry at this point. That's why Classic has the most chance to get activated.

Vocal support is useless. You've stated the same for XT and look what happened. There even was a signed letter announcing its support. What a joke.

With my limited understanding, I've come to really like SegWit and some associated options. Is there anything we can do to help - take up mining in a small way for example?

This doesn't help the development process though. The easiest thing that you could do and show support is to set up a few full nodes.

Coinbase already did...

Why am I not surprised that this evil is on board with this?

[knight22]

No data yet. Mostly vocal support from a majority of mining pools and the broad industry at this point. That's why Classic has the most chance to get activated.

Vocal support is useless. You've stated the same for XT and look what happened. There even was a signed letter announcing its support. What a joke.

XT lacked miners support from the start. Not Classic.

[CIYAM]

Bitstamp and Coinbase already did...

Did what exactly?

Did they promise to go bankrupt to support a fork?

(somehow I doubt that they did that)

[knight22]

Bitstamp and Coinbase already did...

Did what exactly?

Publicly supported Classic.

https://bitcoinclassic.com/ in case you weren't aware who supports it.

[CIYAM]

https://bitcoinclassic.com/ in case you weren't aware who supports it.

Did they say that they would gladly go bankrupt to support it?

(of course they didn't and you know they didn't)

Just re-read my OP and you'll see that if we end up with such a fork then there is going to be no future for Bitcoin.

[knight22]

https://bitcoinclassic.com/ in case you weren't aware who supports it.

Did they say that they would gladly go bankrupt to support it?

(of course they didn't and you know they didn't)

Of course they didn't because NO ONE actually think they will go bankrupt for switching to Classic and increase bitcoin's capacity.

[Lauda]

Publicly supported Classic.

https://bitcoinclassic.com/ in case you weren't aware who supports it.

Companies: "Bitcoin.com". Is this some kind of joke?   You guys seem to be drinking some strong kool-aid. Classic doesn't even have real developers it solely depends on the people who are Core contributors.

Did they say that they would gladly go bankrupt to support it?

The website is a joke. They even listed Marshall Long at one point. Peter Rizun is listed as a developer and Roger Ver listed as an important user.  

Of course they didn't because NO ONE actually think they will go bankrupt for switching to Classic and increase bitcoin's capacity.

It is not about the capacity; are you that deluded? Segwit offers enough capacity for 2016 and will cause no damage at all (where the rushed out fork would).

[CIYAM]

Of course they didn't because NO ONE actually think they will go bankrupt for switching to Classic and increase bitcoin's capacity.

If the vast majority do not agree then you end up with 2 Bitcoins.

Do you not understand this?

[crazyivan]

If we actually end up with a forked blockchain then we will have "two Bitcoins" (or more depending upon the software being used).

What will this do?

For a start I predict it will cause all exchanges to "stop trading" (as they will not want to risk fiat losses in case they have ended up on the wrong fork).

Once the exchanges have stopped then the miners can no longer sell their BTC block rewards so that means within a very short time there will be a serious problem in the mining area.

The amount of electricity that miners are paying for is so large that they will most likely shut down their hashing operations if the exchanges have closed down which will reduce the difficulty (in two weeks).

After two weeks if the problem hasn't been worked out then everyone is basically going to walk away and the Bitcoin experiment will be declared a failure.

This is what we are facing (so you've got to wonder why Gavin wants to try and push for this).

Oh look, another BTC doom theorist. Maybe aliens come and steal Gavin and your wallet.

STOP SPREADING FUD!

[CIYAM]

STOP SPREADING FUD!

Sorry - no FUD here - if you think an exchange is going to risk losing all their fiat on a fork you are sadly mistaken.

(exchanges don't actually work for a loss)

[knight22]

Of course they didn't because NO ONE actually think they will go bankrupt for switching to Classic and increase bitcoin's capacity.

If the vast majority do not agree then you end up with 2 Bitcoins.

Do you not understand this?

Yup, that's why there is a 75% threshold so your scenario won't happen. 75% is more than enough. It means on the worst case, 75% agreed to leave at most 25% behind. I doubt 25% will stick with the old chain anyway.

[matt4054]

Whoever pushes the fork has a strong incentive to see its side of the fork be recognized as the only "universal" bitcoin, in the end the other side of the fork is doomed and could only serve some anecdotic purpose in the long run at best. Most likely it will just die fast.

[Amph]

another thing...miners can always sell privately i believe, their electricity bills is far less than their profit

this mean that for the time being they have accumulated a huge margin between profit and consumption and they are not forced to sell any coin to compensate

Whoever pushes the fork has a strong incentive to see its side of the fork be recognized as the only "universal" bitcoin, in the end the other side of the fork is doomed and could only serve some anecdotic purpose in the long run at best. Most likely it will just die fast.

isn't this a way to kill adoption instead of increasing it? because some merchants will simply abandon the whole bitcoin idea if they don't like the new fork

[CIYAM]

Yup, that's why there is a 75% threshold so your scenario won't happen. 75% is more than enough. It means on the worst case, 75% agreed to leave at most 25% behind. I doubt 25% will stick with the old chain anyway.

I guess you didn't closely follow about what happened with NotXT.

I can guarantee you that there will be fake BitcoinClassic nodes created so that it seems that 75% is achieved and then after one day - that 75% will disappear (and this is why all exchanges will simply stop exchanging as they know that this will happen).

[Lauda]

Yup, that's why there is a 75% threshold so your scenario won't happen. 75% is more than enough. It means on the worst case, 75% agreed to leave at most 25% behind. I doubt 25% will stick with the old chain anyway.

The other 25% which are almost 1/3 of the system are being forced to take action. If we end up being a system where the majority can push around the rest, then we are not better than fiat.
The other 25% (of the original sum) is more than 1/3 of the forked system and are being forced to take decide.

Oh look, another BTC doom theorist. Maybe aliens come and steal Gavin and your wallet.

STOP SPREADING FUD!

Two chains, twice the amount of coins. This is not FUD; this is a fact.

Whoever pushes the fork has a strong incentive to see its side of the fork be recognized as the only "universal" bitcoin

Strong incentive to test out this attack vector on Bitcoin.

[knight22]

Yup, that's why there is a 75% threshold so your scenario won't happen. 75% is more than enough. It means on the worst case, 75% agreed to leave at most 25% behind. I doubt 25% will stick with the old chain anyway.

The other 25% which are almost 1/3 of the system are being forced to take action. If we end up being a system where the majority can push around the rest, then we are not better than fiat.

Then you don't understand how the actual fiat system works.

btw 25% =/= almost 1/3. It equals 1/4.

[CIYAM]

Then you don't understand how the actual fiat system works.

Huh?

What on earth are you talking about?

If you are exchanging fiat for BTC and your blockchain ends up being deleted (due to a fork) then you just lost your fiat.

(as you should well know there are now refunds so the criminals are all waiting and hoping for this fork so that they can steal)

[knight22]

Yup, that's why there is a 75% threshold so your scenario won't happen. 75% is more than enough. It means on the worst case, 75% agreed to leave at most 25% behind. I doubt 25% will stick with the old chain anyway.

I guess you didn't closely follow about what happened with NotXT.

I can guarantee you that there will be fake BitcoinClassic nodes created so that it seems that 75% is achieved and then after one day - that 75% will disappear (and this is why all exchanges will simply stop exchanging as they know that this will happen).

Irrelevant. Miners won't mine on faked nodes and mine will be very real. That's all I care.