69,000 (69K) Unconfirmed Transactions! ....WTF...???

[dinofelis]

Hard fork the longer chain wins but the older clients could choose to keep their chain if they want to. The fork with the most users is the fork that has value, that's democracy.

Not at all.  Hard fork means that the chain is now two independent chains.  On each of these two independent chains, there is consensus.  There's no interaction any more between the two chains, they are now two different crypto currencies.  The market cap of the original chain will now be split over both prongs.  Of course, users and miners might all flock to one of the chains, and abandon the other one.  Or not.  In the end, the users will decide upon the market cap split, and the miners will follow.

If one of the Forks is very weak compared to the other, a small group that could 51% dominate the weaker fork , might rewrite a little of the enemy fork's history to completely destroy it in the eyes of investors. A rewrite of say 3 or 4 hours would be more than enough Bad PR to crush its price permanently.  


 

Yes.  However, what does this mean ?  There are two possibilities:

Initially, there was a HUGE consensus amongst miners to apply the HF.  This is why only a small flock of miners continued on the old chain.  Otherwise, there is no "weak chain".  This can, or cannot, agree with the user preferences.

1) If ALSO the users have HUGE consensus for the HF, then there's only a very small minority of the users not in agreement with the HF, and the non-forked chain being attacked, dying and so on is not harming most of the consensus.

2) If the users are much more divided, say 40%-60%, then, as a miner, you would be an idiot to WASTE your mining hash rate on attacking the chain *where a lot of money is to be made*.  Indeed, if a small minority of miners went to the old chain, and you are a miner, instead of WASTING your hash rate on attacking it, you better JOIN THEM and get a lot of rewards.  If the users decide to allocate 40% of the market cap to the coins you're reaping in right now with the small minority of miners, that's much more profitable than wasting your hash rate to kill it.
Note, that's EXACTLY what happened to ETC, and that chinese guy, what's his name, claiming he would destroy ETC with his hash power... only to join ETC mining soon.


Because mining a chain with a smaller amount of miners than its market cap is very profitable.

[kiklo]

Valid Points in a normal split,

However a working Segwit/LN fork is a direct threat to the Miners receiving Transaction fees.
Taking 3 or 4 hours to kill a segwit/LN chain , is directly stopping your competitor that will have an unfair advantage as time goes on.

Either kill it now or segwit & LN kills you later, that is the choice the miners face, which will lead them to take a more aggressive stance than in the ETH/ETC debacle.  


 

FYI:  It is a kill or be killed scenario and Both sides know it.
Two Chains Enter only One Chain will Leave.

[freedomno1]

Valid Points in a normal split,

However a working Segwit/LN fork is a direct threat to the Miners receiving Transaction fees.
Taking 3 or 4 hours to kill a segwit/LN chain , is directly stopping your competitor that will have an unfair advantage as time goes on.

Either kill it now or segwit & LN kills you later, that is the choice the miners face, which will lead them to take a more aggressive stance than in the ETH/ETC debacle.  

FYI:  It is a kill or be killed scenario and Both sides know it.
Two Chains Enter only One Chain will Leave.

The wise words of Satoshi came back from the grave to remind me
Miners just need to remember that increased trade volume wins over decreased volume in generating fees over time and that they are destroying their own growth with this near-sighted block-size return.

Is the fee enough to always ensure the profitability of running a node, even when BitCoin generation stops being profitable?

Right.  Otherwise we couldn't have a finite limit of 21 million coins, because there would always need to be some minimum reward for generating.  In a few decades when the reward gets too small, the transaction fee will become the main compensation for nodes.  I'm sure that in 20 years there will either be very large transaction volume or no volume.

[dinofelis]

Valid Points in a normal split,

However a working Segwit/LN fork is a direct threat to the Miners receiving Transaction fees.
Taking 3 or 4 hours to kill a segwit/LN chain , is directly stopping your competitor that will have an unfair advantage as time goes on.

As this is a SOFT fork, the argument doesn't work.  There is no "second chain".  If a majority of miners adopts it, the minority is forced to accept.  Because there's no "other prong" to flee to.

But don't worry.  Normally, NOTHING will change to bitcoin.  The block size issue will never be resolved, and things will stay the way they are.  Because of immutability dynamics.  Unless bitcoin becomes centralized (for instance, the Chinese government might impose Segwit or something).

I don't think there's more chance for the block size to change or Segwit to get adopted, no more than that the final number of bitcoin, 21 million, will be increased.  Because the block chain size is now an economic parameter of scarcity which implies a market.

[kiklo]

Valid Points in a normal split,

However a working Segwit/LN fork is a direct threat to the Miners receiving Transaction fees.
Taking 3 or 4 hours to kill a segwit/LN chain , is directly stopping your competitor that will have an unfair advantage as time goes on.

As this is a SOFT fork, the argument doesn't work.  There is no "second chain".  If a majority of miners adopts it, the minority is forced to accept.  Because there's no "other prong" to flee to.

But don't worry.  Normally, NOTHING will change to bitcoin.  The block size issue will never be resolved, and things will stay the way they are.  Because of immutability dynamics.  Unless bitcoin becomes centralized (for instance, the Chinese government might impose Segwit or something).

I don't think there's more chance for the block size to change or Segwit to get adopted, no more than that the final number of bitcoin, 21 million, will be increased.  Because the block chain size is now an economic parameter of scarcity which implies a market.

Actually if BTC Unlimited gains ~25% more of the mining, they could force a Fork , by Merely putting out a 2 MB Block.  
BTC Unlimited would have over 51%.

 

FYI:
Funny Segwit needs 95% to activate, but BTC Unlimited Could Force a Fork with 51% or higher and the rest of the chain would have to follow or be left behind.

[kiklo]

The wise words of Satoshi came back from the grave to remind me
Miners just need to remember that increased trade volume wins over decreased volume in generating fees over time and that they are destroying their own growth with this near-sighted block-size return.

Is the fee enough to always ensure the profitability of running a node, even when BitCoin generation stops being profitable?

Right.  Otherwise we couldn't have a finite limit of 21 million coins, because there would always need to be some minimum reward for generating.  In a few decades when the reward gets too small, the transaction fee will become the main compensation for nodes.  I'm sure that in 20 years there will either be very large transaction volume or no volume.

You do realize the Goal of Segwit & LN, is that in the Future ALL Transactions take place OFFCHAIN.
Miners will have No Volume, if LN with Segwit is activated.

Miners are not activating Segwit, to protect their future Transaction fee Volume.
However BTC Core is not offering any solutions to the unconfirmed transaction problems they can implement ,
so BTC Unlimited is the only real choice they have.


 

[dinofelis]

You do realize the Goal of Segwit & LN, is that in the Future ALL Transactions take place OFFCHAIN.
Miners will have No Volume, if LN with Segwit is activated.

In the long run, in any case, scaling is impossible if all transactions have to be on one big single chain.  Miners will adapt difficulty to what they will earn.  Maybe difficulty will go down to PC level activity again, in that case, everybody can mine again with his PC.  No serious problem.  Mining-as-a-business is in any case not something that is sustainable.

But don't worry, it won't happen.  Bitcoin will remain what it is, with 2.5 transactions per second.  Bitcoin has reached its full potential (not as price, but as transaction medium on chain), and is locked in to what it is today.

[dinofelis]

Actually if BTC Unlimited gains ~25% more of the mining, they could force a Fork , by Merely putting out a 2 MB Block.  Wink
BTC Unlimited would have over 51%.

 Cool

FYI:
Funny Segwit needs 95% to activate, but BTC Unlimited Could Force a Fork with 51% or higher and the rest of the chain would have to follow or be left behind.

This is not true.  BU can even fork right away.  It doesn't need any kind of majority.  We would simply have two coins, like ETH and ETC.

I think you have no clear view about the distinction between a hard fork, and a soft fork.

A hard fork: the result is two currencies, and each currency has "full consensus".  The split can happen with just any percentage of adoption, even though less than 10% is most probably not viable (the chain would simply die).

A soft fork: a majority of miners imposes its will on the rest, and there remains only one single currency.  They have put the condition of 95% in the current version of Segwit to avoid this "majority over minority" thing, but they could just as well not.

[target]

It always happen when BTC price dips about -3%. I think its getting difficult for miners to cope up when thousands of us are also moving BTCs to altcoins or to cash. I have also try to send my btc 4 hours ago and still not confirmed up to now. A trader could lose more money because of the slow confirmation, the speed is crucial to profits we could get from moving from currency to currency. Are this going to depend to the exchange or would it help if some exchange wallets has to option to set a larger fee?

[kiklo]

Valid Points in a normal split,

However a working Segwit/LN fork is a direct threat to the Miners receiving Transaction fees.
Taking 3 or 4 hours to kill a segwit/LN chain , is directly stopping your competitor that will have an unfair advantage as time goes on.

As this is a SOFT fork, the argument doesn't work.  There is no "second chain".  If a majority of miners adopts it, the minority is forced to accept.  Because there's no "other prong" to flee to.

But don't worry.  Normally, NOTHING will change to bitcoin.  The block size issue will never be resolved, and things will stay the way they are.  Because of immutability dynamics.  Unless bitcoin becomes centralized (for instance, the Chinese government might impose Segwit or something).

I don't think there's more chance for the block size to change or Segwit to get adopted, no more than that the final number of bitcoin, 21 million, will be increased.  Because the block chain size is now an economic parameter of scarcity which implies a market.

This is not true.  BU can even fork right away.  It doesn't need any kind of majority.  We would simply have two coins, like ETH and ETC.

I think you have no clear view about the distinction between a hard fork, and a soft fork.

A hard fork: the result is two currencies, and each currency has "full consensus".  The split can happen with just any percentage of adoption, even though less than 10% is most probably not viable (the chain would simply die).

A soft fork: a majority of miners imposes its will on the rest, and there remains only one single currency.

I think you are missing the point , if BTU gains 51% and holds it, they can release a 2MB block ,
that will Fork their network away from the Segwit voters/miners,  Call it Hard, Call it soft, call it medium
whatever it will be a Fork , the other side will have to update to BTU , so they can add any new blocks in the blockchain.

 

[dinofelis]

I think you are missing the point , if BTU gains 51% and holds it, they can release a 2MB block

But they can do this right away, and create bitcoinBU as an altcoin.  What is so special about 51% ?  They can make an altcoin with 25% of the mining, with 50% of the mining, with 75% of the mining.

[AliceWonderMiscreations]

I think you are missing the point , if BTU gains 51% and holds it, they can release a 2MB block

But they can do this right away, and create bitcoinBU as an altcoin.  What is so special about 51% ?  They can make an altcoin with 25% of the mining, with 50% of the mining, with 75% of the mining.

They don't want to make an altcoin. They want to fix bitcoin.

[kiklo]

I think you are missing the point , if BTU gains 51% and holds it, they can release a 2MB block

But they can do this right away, and create bitcoinBU as an altcoin.

Yes they could , but they have less than 51% at the moment, meaning doing it now would leave them with the weaker chain,
If they wait til they achieve 51% or higher, they can fork with the Stronger Chain!
Which is what they should do.


 

FYI:
@Dinofelis,
I recommend you study a 51% attack, so you can grasp the power having 51% or more in a PoW coin gives you.

[Lauda]

I think you are missing the point , if BTU gains 51% and holds it, they can release a 2MB block

But they can do this right away, and create bitcoinBU as an altcoin.  What is so special about 51% ?  They can make an altcoin with 25% of the mining, with 50% of the mining, with 75% of the mining.

They don't want to make an altcoin. They want to fix bitcoin.

Forking with 51% -> malicious attack -> altcoin creation. Only a consensus based hard fork can be considered a network 'upgrade'.

[dinofelis]

They don't want to make an altcoin. They want to fix bitcoin.

If you hardfork, you ALWAYS make an altcoin.  But if you have full consensus, that altcoin takes over the entire market cap of the old coin, and the old coin dies (its chain is not propagated any more).
If you don't have full consensus, you end up with two coins.  Probably a prong with much less than 10% mining power is not viable.  This is why 95% consensus is a good thing if you want to ONLY keep the altcoin and have the original die (as it has less than 5% of mining power in that case).  After which you rename the alt coin with the original name.

But if you are at 25%, 50% or 75% doesn't make much of a difference: you will have two coins.  The market will decide about the final split in market caps, and following that, about the re-adjusted mining power that goes to each.

Look at the ethereum -> eth/etc split.

@Kiklo

There is no "stronger chain" after a hard fork, as they are not technically in competition.  Their competition is in the market, not on the chains.

[dinofelis]

Forking with 51% -> malicious attack -> altcoin creation. Only a consensus based hard fork can be considered a network 'upgrade'.

"forking with 51%" is not the same as a 51% attack.  In a 51% attack, both prongs follow the same protocol, and are in competition, but there's more hash power in one prong that has been *rewriting* the past few blocks.  In how much this is an "attack" and in how much this is a "consensus decision" is left in the middle, but this is NOT what a hard fork is about.  Both prongs are "valid prongs" according to the unique protocol.  It is only an "attack" because it has orphaned the "good" last blocks.

In a hard fork, both prongs are incompatible. As such, the two prongs are not in "mining competition".  One prong is considered invalid according to the other prong's protocol.  There is no "longest chain".  There is no "chain with highest PoW".  One chain is simply INVALID according to the protocol you adhere to.

[kiklo]

They don't want to make an altcoin. They want to fix bitcoin.

If you hardfork, you ALWAYS make an altcoin.  But if you have full consensus, that altcoin takes over the entire market cap of the old coin, and the old coin dies (its chain is not propagated any more).
If you don't have full consensus, you end up with two coins.  Probably a prong with much less than 10% mining power is not viable.  This is why 95% consensus is a good thing if you want to ONLY keep the altcoin and have the original die (as it has less than 5% of mining power in that case).  After which you rename the alt coin with the original name.

But if you are at 25%, 50% or 75% doesn't make much of a difference: you will have two coins.  The market will decide about the final split in market caps, and following that, about the re-adjusted mining power that goes to each.

Look at the ethereum -> eth/etc split.

The Market will Choose the Stronger Chain, which is why you want 51% or more.
If the Market was dumb enough to choose the weaker chain , it is easy to crash and then the stronger chain wins.

Compare ETH & ETC

ETH =>$18.53
ETC =>  $1.34

The Market is choosing and ETC is dying, it is only a matter of time.
BTC Markets will Choose at a faster rate , because their is a lot more money involved.
Strongest BTC Chain will Destroy the other.

 

[kiklo]

They don't want to make an altcoin. They want to fix bitcoin.

If you hardfork, you ALWAYS make an altcoin.  But if you have full consensus, that altcoin takes over the entire market cap of the old coin, and the old coin dies (its chain is not propagated any more).
If you don't have full consensus, you end up with two coins.  Probably a prong with much less than 10% mining power is not viable.  This is why 95% consensus is a good thing if you want to ONLY keep the altcoin and have the original die (as it has less than 5% of mining power in that case).  After which you rename the alt coin with the original name.

But if you are at 25%, 50% or 75% doesn't make much of a difference: you will have two coins.  The market will decide about the final split in market caps, and following that, about the re-adjusted mining power that goes to each.

Look at the ethereum -> eth/etc split.

@Kiklo

There is no "stronger chain" after a hard fork, as they are not technically in competition.  Their competition is in the market, not on the chains.

Stronger Chain is the one that is Longest with the Highest Difficulty, therefore it is the most Protected from an outside attack.
The Market will Choose the Stronger Chain upon comparison.
The Price of the Stronger Chain will increase and those other miners will flock to it.

 

I.E.
Compare ETH & ETC
ETH =>$18.53
ETC =>  $1.34

[kiklo]

Forking with 51% -> malicious attack -> altcoin creation. Only a consensus based hard fork can be considered a network 'upgrade'.

Segwit Shrills, they are like a cancer, takes surgery and radiation to get rid of them. 


 

[dinofelis]

FYI:
@Dinofelis,
I recommend you study a 51% attack, so you can grasp the power having 51% or more in a PoW coin gives you.

See my previous post.  You confuse a 51% attack within the same protocol, where both prongs are valid according to the (unique) consensus rules, with a hard fork where the other prong is simply invalid.