Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion

[yefi]

This is all just an experiment and we really need to see what happens when a major, long lasting fork occurs. If Bitcoin can't survive, it wasn't good enough to begin with, and it would be time to go back to the drawing board.

No drawing board is going to solve a split consensus 

[nioc]

My vacation house has a water saving toilet.  I choose a simple and unique design.  I have had no issues with tissues or other items although I have not tried fiat.

Yes there are bad designs available.  

So what is the proper design for a bitcoin block?

[gentlemand]

I just shit on the kitchen table and let grandma clear it up when she comes to visit.

[ChartBuddy]

Coin
Explanation

[rebuilder]

The possible complication is if the community gets stuck in a half-way state, with almost equal mining power on each side.  Then there may be two blockchains, lots of orphaned blocks and branches, etc..  

You don't want to know about that possibility; just pray that it does not happen, and, if it does, just stop issuing transaction until the impasse gets resolved as above.  Even after the critical block, all the unspent coins that were created before that block will remain there, no matter what happens.  

It was my understanding the XT fork will only take place if 75% of hashpower supports it. I suppose miners could change their minds after the fact, but otherwise a "half-way state" will not result in a fork.

[ChartBuddy]

Coin
Explanation

[Meuh6879]

EURO

[Fatman3001]

The possible complication is if the community gets stuck in a half-way state, with almost equal mining power on each side.  Then there may be two blockchains, lots of orphaned blocks and branches, etc..  

You don't want to know about that possibility; just pray that it does not happen, and, if it does, just stop issuing transaction until the impasse gets resolved as above.  Even after the critical block, all the unspent coins that were created before that block will remain there, no matter what happens.  

It was my understanding the XT fork will only take place if 75% of hashpower supports it. I suppose miners could change their minds after the fact, but otherwise a "half-way state" will not result in a fork.

Nodes, not miners. (?)

[rebuilder]

Nodes, not miners. (?)

From what I read, the threshold is 75% of the previous 1000 blocks mined by XT-compatible miners, but in January 2016 at the earliest

[shmadz]

Nodes, not miners. (?)

From what I read, the threshold is 75% of the previous 1000 blocks mined by XT-compatible miners, but in January 2016 at the earliest

Kinda,

The trigger to allow larger blocks is dependant solely on miners.

Activation is achieved when 750 of 1,000 consecutive blocks in the best chain have a version number with bits 3 and 14 set (0x20000004 in hex). The activation time will be the timestamp of the 750'th block plus a two week (1,209,600 second) grace period to give any remaining miners or services time to upgrade to support larger blocks. If a supermajority is achieved more than two weeks before 2016-01-11 00:00:00 UTC, the activation time will be 2016-01-11 00:00:00 UTC.

Of course, as we've seen recently, the rules that the miners pretend to follow, and the rules they actually follow, are two different things.

Also, if the blocks created by the miners are not accepted by a similar "supermajority" of the clients, then those rewards from creating the blocks will be difficult to spend.

It's gonna be a big, hot, mess.

[dreamspark]

Nodes, not miners. (?)

From what I read, the threshold is 75% of the previous 1000 blocks mined by XT-compatible miners, but in January 2016 at the earliest

Kinda,

The trigger to allow larger blocks is dependant solely on miners.

Activation is achieved when 750 of 1,000 consecutive blocks in the best chain have a version number with bits 3 and 14 set (0x20000004 in hex). The activation time will be the timestamp of the 750'th block plus a two week (1,209,600 second) grace period to give any remaining miners or services time to upgrade to support larger blocks. If a supermajority is achieved more than two weeks before 2016-01-11 00:00:00 UTC, the activation time will be 2016-01-11 00:00:00 UTC.

Of course, as we've seen recently, the rules that the miners pretend to follow, and the rules they actually follow, are two different things.

Also, if the blocks created by the miners are not accepted by a similar "supermajority" of the clients, then those rewards from creating the blocks will be difficult to spend.

It's gonna be a big, hot, mess.

Add into that prorogation time of the conflicting clients, ie if the vast majority of clients are running core and not relating bigger blocks then propagation of xt blocks would be slower and there is the chance that they wont be relayed before a core block is propogated and begun to built upon.

[ChartBuddy]

Coin
Explanation

[BitThink]

Nodes, not miners. (?)

From what I read, the threshold is 75% of the previous 1000 blocks mined by XT-compatible miners, but in January 2016 at the earliest

Kinda,

The trigger to allow larger blocks is dependant solely on miners.

Activation is achieved when 750 of 1,000 consecutive blocks in the best chain have a version number with bits 3 and 14 set (0x20000004 in hex). The activation time will be the timestamp of the 750'th block plus a two week (1,209,600 second) grace period to give any remaining miners or services time to upgrade to support larger blocks. If a supermajority is achieved more than two weeks before 2016-01-11 00:00:00 UTC, the activation time will be 2016-01-11 00:00:00 UTC.

Of course, as we've seen recently, the rules that the miners pretend to follow, and the rules they actually follow, are two different things.

Also, if the blocks created by the miners are not accepted by a similar "supermajority" of the clients, then those rewards from creating the blocks will be difficult to spend.

It's gonna be a big, hot, mess.

Add into that prorogation time of the conflicting clients, ie if the vast majority of clients are running core and not relating bigger blocks then propagation of xt blocks would be slower and there is the chance that they wont be relayed before a core block is propogated and begun to built upon.

Mining pool will follow the nodes. To secure their profit, most of them will only switch to XT after majority full nodes do. Therefore, there will be no mess at all. Either majority of nodes switch to XT and then pools follow, or nothing happens.

[shmadz]

Approx. 8.5% xt nodes, almost there!
...


It's not even that I am against raising the limit. (within reason)  I'm mostly just irked by the fear mongering and panic and desperation-driven FUD coming out of the Hearn/Andresen camp.

[ChartBuddy]

Coin
Explanation

[sAt0sHiFanClub]

It's not even that I am against raising the limit. (within reason)  I'm mostly just irked by the fear mongering and panic and desperation-driven FUD coming out of the Hearn/Andresen camp.

Most of the hysterics I've witnessed are from the Blockstream camp.  Most XT posts seem pretty calm, just watching the adoption. Anti forkers are screaming threats and XT-spoofs in an effort to subvert what has already happened.

[nicked]

I may not post a lot but I've been around for quite some time. It appears to me that the large majority of FUD is coming from the "Core" camp.

[JorgeStolfi]

The possible complication is if the community gets stuck in a half-way state, with almost equal mining power on each side.  Then there may be two blockchains, lots of orphaned blocks and branches, etc..  

It was my understanding the XT fork will only take place if 75% of hashpower supports it. I suppose miners could change their minds after the fact, but otherwise a "half-way state" will not result in a fork.

The BitcoinXT version may never conquer 75% fo the hashpower.  Then there will be no fork, and people can continue using either version, indifferently, modulo future upgrades and forks.

Suppose the BitcoinXT does get 75% of the hashpower.  Since BitcoinXT implements a grace period between the 75% vote and the actual lifting of the limit, there will be time to alert all remaining Core players to upgrade, and hopefully they will do so.  Then only the XT branch will survive, and there will be no other complication for the clients.

However, if the Core players are stubborn, the two branches will persist for a while.  There would be

  a "XT" branch, with more PoW, mined by the XT miners and accepted by all XT players and (IIRC) by the SPV Core clients; but also

  a "Core" branch, with less PoW. mined by the Core miners and accepted by full Core nodes only.

If the ratio were to remain 75% XT : 25% Core, thenThe XT branch may start out with one block every ~13 minutes, and the Core branch with one block every ~40 minutes; but eventually their difficulties would readjust so that both will have 1 block every 10 minutes.

Given the way that the way the fork is programmed, every transaction issued will be executed in principle on both chains; so, for most clients, there will seem to be only one coin.  However, by accident or intentionally, a transaction may eventually include fresh coins mined after the fork, and therefore will be valid only on the branch where those coins were mined.  An expert bitcoiner could exploit that trick to sell one version of coins and buy more of the other, or spend each version independently.  However, as soon as the impasse resolves itself, and everybody moves to one of the two branches, the other version of the coins will become useless and worthless.  So one should be wary of buying "minority coins" or accepting them in payment.

But the tide may turn, and instead of everybody moving to XT, some miners may decide to go back to Core.  If the XT slice drops to less than 50%, AFAIK the XT version will NOT reduce the block size limit again.  Then there will be just one persistent chain of 1 MB blocks, but with occasional side branches that are orphaned after a few blocks.   All miners will mine on the persistent branch, but when a XT miner solves and posts an oversize block, a new side branch will start, and it will be mined by XT miners until the Core branch overtakes it.   Full Core nodes will only see the main branch, but full XT nodes as well all SPV clients will see the chain "stutter"  as transactions get confirmed in the side branch, then unconfirmed, then confirmed again.  The closer the hashpower is to a 50:50 split, the longer and more frequent the side branches will be.

In short, the states with mixed XT/Core mining are messy, and not much fun for consumers or traders.  I don't think that there are significant opportunities in them.

[ChartBuddy]

Coin
Explanation

[criptix]

did the main exchanges in the west and china comment on core/xt fork situation?

i dont think they will run both core and xt when the times comes or?

what a mess zz