Bitcoin Exchanges Unveil Emergency Hard Fork Contingency Plan

[silversmith]

Bitcoin Exchanges Unveil Emergency Hard Fork Contingency Plan

http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-exchanges-unveil-emergency-hard-fork-contingency-plan/

"As exchanges in the Bitcoin ecosystem, we face certain challenges that are unique to us. Specifically, we are collectively faced with addressing the very real possibility that a Bitcoin network split may occur in the future. We’d like to take the time to update the community on the procedure that we, as an industry, intend to follow in the event of a contentious hardfork activating on the Bitcoin network.

First, we want to make it clear that we are not here to pass judgement on such an event. If miners want to direct their hashing power to an alternative and incompatible protocol implementation, that is their right. We believe, however, that such hardforks should be engendered through a consensus of miners and users and, at this time, we have not achieved consensus.

As exchanges, we have a responsibility to maintain orderly markets that trade continuously 24/7/365. It is incumbent upon us to support a coherent, orderly, and industry-wide approach to preparing for and responding to a contentious hardfork. In the case of a Bitcoin hardfork, we cannot suspend operations and wait for a winner to emerge. Many of our platforms allow leveraged trading that requires markets to operate continuously. Due to operational requirements alone we are compelled to label an incompatible fork as a new asset.

Since it appears likely we may see a hardfork initiated by the Bitcoin Unlimited project, we have decided to designate the Bitcoin Unlimited fork as BTU (or XBU). The Bitcoin Core implementation will continue to trade as BTC (or XBT) and all exchanges will process deposits and withdrawals in BTC even if the BTU chain has more hashing power. Some exchanges intend to list BTU and all of us will try to take steps to preserve and enable access to customers’ BTU. However, none of the undersigned can list BTU unless we can run both chains independently without incident. Consequently, we insist that the Bitcoin Unlimited community (or any other consensus breaking implementation) build in strong two-wayreplay protection. Failure to do so will impede our ability to preserve BTU for customers and will either delay or outright preclude the listing of BTU.

In summary, if a contentious hardfork occurs, the Bitcoin Core implementation will continue to be listed as BTC (or XBT) and the new fork as BTU (or XBU), but not without adequate replay protection. We do this not out of judgement or philosophical reasons but rather for practical and operational considerations.

While a contentious forking event may be inevitable, and may ultimately provide a path forward for on-chain capacity increases, we have an obligation to our customers to provide a clear and consistent plan to minimize potential confusion surrounding such an event. We welcome any and all assistance that the development community may offer in reducing the risk inherent with such a pivotal moment in Bitcoin’s history."

We are:

Bitfinex, Bitstamp, BTCC, Bitso, Bitsquare, Bitonic, Bitbank, Coinfloor, Coincheck, itBit, QuadrigaCX, Bitt, Bittrex, Kraken, Ripio, ShapeShift, The Rock Trading and Zaif

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[Senor.Bla]

Two thoughts on this one.

1. What happens if a BU fork will have the majority but did not implement the "strong two-wayreplay protection"?

2. A fork should make the exchanges some money, so it wouldn't surprise me to see them push for it.

[mining1]

So nothing changes; back to square 1; civil war continues.
Why ? Because BTU will only go for hardfork with enough hashing power to ensure victory and be considered the main chain. There's no point to go for it otherwise. So the internal struggle will continue while the community will get even more divided untill they will have their majority. Don't know why BTC core supporters think this is a win.
@senor.bla without replay protection any transaction sent on one chain can be replayed on the other chain, so it will be extremely risky to spend BTC.

[mining1]

One thing is certain. Bitcoin problems won't be tackled with these on going wars and community split. It's been 3 years already, nothing changed.

[Carlton Banks]

Coinbase are a conspicuous absence on the list. Who else is missing?

[QuestionAuthority]

The Most Common Causes of Failed Open-Source Software Projects

https://handsontable.com/blog/articles/the-most-common-causes-of-failed-open-source-software-projects

Satoshi =

Lack of Interest - this is specific to a lack of interest by the original developer/author, not users or the community. Whatever it is that causes the developer/author to start losing interest in the project, it inevitably ends with the project being abandoned.

Everyone on this forum =

Creative Differences - any open-source project worked on by two or more people risks facing a creative differences moment which, if not managed properly, could lead to a split, and the project being forked. And if the community is too fragmented after the split, both projects risk being abandoned.

Mike Hearn, Gavin Andersen =

Lack of Patience - some users and communities can be quite demanding when it comes to requesting features and updates, and a developer without the temperament to manage this will more than likely walk away (and worst-case scenario, delete the project too).

Half of the original dev team =

Change of Profession - any change in career or profession by the developer/author can jeopardise the future of an open-source project as their priorities and focus shift.

Bitcoin has had all of the below happen

Project Related Failures

Technology - as a developer you would need no reminding that technology is constantly changing, and even large corporations can be affected by this, as evidenced by Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight effectively killed off by HTML5.

Scale - sometimes what starts off as a small project eventually evolves into something too large for a single developer to manage, and unless the community steps in and assists, the project risks limping towards abandonment.

Legal Problems - very few open-source software developers have the resources to confidently respond to legal challenges from larger businesses, inevitably resulting in their project being abandoned and deleted.

Acquisition - standard acquisitions don't necessarily mean a project has failed, especially if the original project remains largely open-source, but with greater access to resources. But there is a trend towards acquihiring, where the original project is shut down, and the developers assimilated by the new company.

Poor Documentation - documentation that is either difficult to understand, or written by a non-native English speaker can hurt an otherwise great piece of software, especially if it is then ignored by the community.
Poor Execution - similarly, a project that fails to deliver will eventually be ignored by the community too. These includes projects that are difficult to install, setup and use, poorly coded projects, and projects that still use old technology.

Usurped by competitor - developers always need to be aware of what their competitors are doing, and this includes indirect competitors. Failure to do so can result in a competitor releasing a far superior product that includes features your users have asked for, but you have not yet implemented.

[Senor.Bla]

So nothing changes; back to square 1; civil war continues.
Why ? Because BTU will only go for hardfork with enough hashing power to ensure victory and be considered the main chain. There's no point to go for it otherwise. So the internal struggle will continue while the community will get even more divided untill they will have their majority. Don't know why BTC core supporters think this is a win.
@senor.bla without replay protection any transaction sent on one chain can be replayed on the other chain, so it will be extremely risky to spend BTC.

I understand the possible danger of an replay attack, but the exchanges want to stick only with core if BU doesn't implement replay protection, which is fine, but what if BU has the bigger hashrate. They will not activate without. This is not covered as an option.

[matt11235]

I think it's good that the exchanges are forthcoming about this. Ideally the blockchain wouldn't fork with angry people on either side, but I don't think that there's any other way for the exchanges to resolve this on their own.

[Jistlad]

Two thoughts on this one.

1. What happens if a BU fork will have the majority but did not implement the "strong two-wayreplay protection"?

2. A fork should make the exchanges some money, so it wouldn't surprise me to see them push for it.

Same question. Who has the responsibility to do that? Core or BU?

[silversmith]

Poloniex Response:

https://poloniex.com/press-releases/2017.03.17-Hard-Fork/

Our Position on the Possible Hard Fork

As stated in the recently-published hard fork contingency plan, Poloniex agrees that any contentious hard fork must include replay attack protection. Without this, exchanges cannot continuously and properly operate.
Why can’t we pause markets until a "winner" emerges?

Unlike a planned fork where the block height is known, Bitcoin Unlimited can activate at an unknown date and time; therefore it is not possible to plan for such an event.
Are you going to support Bitcoin Unlimited or Bitcoin Core?

We will support Bitcoin Core continuously as BTC. In line with our current internal policy, if you have Bitcoin on balance at the time of the fork, we will make Bitcoin Unlimited available for withdrawal provided it is safe to do so. At a minimum, any new fork must include built-in replay protection. Without replay protection, we would be unable to preserve customers' Bitcoin Unlimited without halting Bitcoin withdrawals, which is unfeasible.

At this time, we have not determined whether or not we will be listing Bitcoin Unlimited.
What if I have my Bitcoin on loan at the time of the fork?

If you have Bitcoin on loan at the time of the fork, you do not have it on balance and therefore you cannot receive corresponding Bitcoin Unlimited.
Why not?

When someone borrows coins, they typically borrow them to sell immediately on the spot market to counterparties who cannot possibly be aware that the coins they bought came from someone who borrowed them. Spot traders unambiguously own their purchases, and are the rightful recipients of the coins on the new chain and they can do with them what they like, whether that is selling them to others or taking them off of the platform entirely.

The terms of the loan dictate that you will receive the same number and type of coins you loaned within X days plus the agreed upon interest.

- The Poloniex team

[monsanto]

We are:

Bitfinex, Bitstamp, BTCC, Bitso, Bitsquare, Bitonic, Bitbank, Coinfloor, Coincheck, itBit, QuadrigaCX, Bitt, Bittrex, Kraken, Ripio, ShapeShift, The Rock Trading and Zaif

Wow, this is huge.  This means payment systems will still be operating on core?  Imagine if payment systems are operating on a chain with the least hash rate... would seem to be a security issue.  I think the ability to control the name bitcoin is half the battle though.  Look at ETH and ETC, it was the exchange's agreement that set that in stone.  If ETH had ended up getting the name ETC I don't think it would be nearly as successful as it has been since the fork.

[Pab]

That kind of fork will cause exodus from btc,that what you can do with eth you cant do with btc.All that is not so funny,it looks like it is just speculative to lower btc price or somebody want to destroy and replace btc
Generally all that is very bad

[dinofelis]

One thing is certain. Bitcoin problems won't be tackled with these on going wars and community split. It's been 3 years already, nothing changed.

Immutability.

[Lauda]

These you have it folks, the economic majority is coming to a consensus that the BU implementation is an altcoin and will be listed under BTU.

[franky1]

coindesk article = DCG
participants in the article = DCG

http://dcg.co/portfolio/

kinda making it toooo obvious who is behind the "treat the majority community as a altcoin when core fork it away if core become the minority"

as for replay prevention. big laugh.
if core wanna ban nodes.. then even when core try to code out a way for core nodes to communicate to BU nodes.. people will make scripts to copy one mempool to the other and ensure there is a reply attack so that core cannot profit from their efforts of causing the split.

much easier core just joins the rest of the majority if there was a majority activation

[gentlemand]

2. A fork should make the exchanges some money, so it wouldn't surprise me to see them push for it.

It would be their single biggest money maker in history. They'll probably all retire and then some creep will set up a BTU only exchange to annoy us all.

[dinofelis]

2. A fork should make the exchanges some money, so it wouldn't surprise me to see them push for it.

It would be their single biggest money maker in history. They'll probably all retire and then some creep will set up a BTU only exchange to annoy us all.

They already made a lot of money out of the ETC/ETH split, but as you say, this would be gentleman for exchanges.  About the whole bitcoin market cap will get exchanged, imagine the fees !

[Yuuto]

The Most Common Causes of Failed Open-Source Software Projects

https://handsontable.com/blog/articles/the-most-common-causes-of-failed-open-source-software-projects

Satoshi =

Lack of Interest - this is specific to a lack of interest by the original developer/author, not users or the community. Whatever it is that causes the developer/author to start losing interest in the project, it inevitably ends with the project being abandoned.

Everyone on this forum =

Creative Differences - any open-source project worked on by two or more people risks facing a creative differences moment which, if not managed properly, could lead to a split, and the project being forked. And if the community is too fragmented after the split, both projects risk being abandoned.

Mike Hearn, Gavin Andersen =

Lack of Patience - some users and communities can be quite demanding when it comes to requesting features and updates, and a developer without the temperament to manage this will more than likely walk away (and worst-case scenario, delete the project too).

Half of the original dev team =

Change of Profession - any change in career or profession by the developer/author can jeopardise the future of an open-source project as their priorities and focus shift.

Bitcoin has had all of the below happen

Project Related Failures

Technology - as a developer you would need no reminding that technology is constantly changing, and even large corporations can be affected by this, as evidenced by Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight effectively killed off by HTML5.

Scale - sometimes what starts off as a small project eventually evolves into something too large for a single developer to manage, and unless the community steps in and assists, the project risks limping towards abandonment.

Legal Problems - very few open-source software developers have the resources to confidently respond to legal challenges from larger businesses, inevitably resulting in their project being abandoned and deleted.

Acquisition - standard acquisitions don't necessarily mean a project has failed, especially if the original project remains largely open-source, but with greater access to resources. But there is a trend towards acquihiring, where the original project is shut down, and the developers assimilated by the new company.

Poor Documentation - documentation that is either difficult to understand, or written by a non-native English speaker can hurt an otherwise great piece of software, especially if it is then ignored by the community.
Poor Execution - similarly, a project that fails to deliver will eventually be ignored by the community too. These includes projects that are difficult to install, setup and use, poorly coded projects, and projects that still use old technology.

Usurped by competitor - developers always need to be aware of what their competitors are doing, and this includes indirect competitors. Failure to do so can result in a competitor releasing a far superior product that includes features your users have asked for, but you have not yet implemented.

That is interesting.
The bitcoin community is obviously very divided currently and will probably continue to be divided even after the hard fork.
Hopefully bitcoin will survive this fiasco, however even if it does there will probably be future ones that are bigger.

[dinofelis]

These you have it folks, the economic majority is coming to a consensus that the BU implementation is an altcoin and will be listed under BTU.

The notion of altcoin will not exist any more.  Bitcoin will have become a coin like any other.
First mover advantage gone if ever that happens.

[Pettuh4]

One thing is certain. Bitcoin problems won't be tackled with these on going wars and community split. It's been 3 years already, nothing changed.

Say that again, these oldies are making things difficult and doing politics everywhere. Let's stop the politicization and get the solutions for Bitcoin to be strengthened.