Why hard forks are good for Bitcoin

[deisik]

This is just another theory, but it seems to be pretty consistent

So why hard forks are good for Bitcoin in the long run? In short, because they allow to get rid of rogue miners. Yesterday I read a letter signed by major cryptocurrency exchanges, and they declared that they would list Bitcoin forks (if such should emerge) as just any other altcoin out there. Basically, it means that any attempts to hard fork Bitcoin will massively and almost instantaneously backfire on those supporting them. People will naturally stick to the trusted version, and treacherous miners will be wasting their resources on mining a useless and worthless coin. In this way, they will necessarily leave the grand pool of genuine Bitcoin miners, and there will be more consensus between those who will remain in respect to future evolution of Bitcoin. Thus, those pools which support hard forks will voluntarily leave the scene and free space for other miners, likely more friendly toward gradual development of Bitcoin. That's why hard forks will come out as good for Bitcoin in the long haul

[OROBTC]

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deisik

Another interesting topic.  Thanks.

Would you post a link to the paper that you read?  That would probably be of interest to those of us who do not fully understand various pieces of the SW v. BU debate as well as the risks of forks (hard and soft).

*  *  *

I continue to be dismayed that the BTC core developers and miners do not seem to be able to resolve the various problems of Bitcoin that plague us.  It seems childish.  Perhaps all the major players should be locked into a room (like the Cardinals at a Papal Conclave) until they resolve this...

And we all would hope that if/when they resolve these current issues that they think ahead as well: get a permanent solution/path to upgrading the Bitcoin Ecosystem in the future.  We would hate to go through this all over again in five years due to (more) shortsighted thinking.



EDIT: I did not vote because my knowledge of the issue is too limited.

[Vaccinus]

i don't like hard fork they route away from the original idea, they are like saying that anyone can change the original code, and make the whole project not serious anymore, it's better to have other option to fix our issue if possible, because if we start to change everything bitcoin would be just a bad coin

[deisik]

Another interesting topic.  Thanks

You are welcome

Would you post a link to the paper that you read?  That would probably be of interest to those of us who do not fully understand various pieces of the SW v. BU debate as well as the risks of forks (hard and soft)

You can read it here

I continue to be dismayed that the BTC core developers and miners do not seem to be able to resolve the various problems of Bitcoin that plague us.  It seems childish.  Perhaps all the major players should be locked into a room (like the Cardinals at a Papal Conclave) until they resolve this...

I don't really think this is required

Cardinals still have an authority represented by Pope himself, so they have no other choice but to come to an agreement either way, sooner or later. Obviously, this is not the case with miners and developers. And I think this is in fact good all in all since they still would not agree on anything. And going the hard way with hard forks may turn out beneficial in the long run. As I said, miners that would support a hard fork will stop mining Bitcoin, therefore someone else will come in and take their place. Quite naturally, their slot will be taken by those supporting Bitcoin, so we will move closer to a consensus. It is sort of natural selection, and this letter signed by exchanges will likely be a great divide for the hesitant and doubtful, i.e. whom they are going to stick to

[sergeyzol]

Maybe it's good in the long run.
But now...
Many users do not have deep knowledge in this area. I'm among them. When I read the letter from the representatives of the exchanges, I was horrified. It seemed to me that all my savings would simply depreciate. My reaction was predictable - I decided to sell bitcoin. But I resisted.
This suggests that such decisions are frightening for most users. Because of this, bitcoin becomes unstable. This is not the rule. After all, we are striving for stability.

[CyberKuro]

This is just another theory, but it seems to be pretty consistent

So why hard forks are good for Bitcoin in the long run? In short, because they allow to get rid of rogue miners. Yesterday I read a letter signed by major cryptocurrency exchanges, and they declared that they would list Bitcoin forks (if such should emerge) as just any other altcoin out there. Basically, it means that any attempts to hard fork Bitcoin will massively and almost instantaneously backfire on those supporting them. People will naturally stick to the trusted version, and treacherous miners will be wasting their resources on mining a useless and worthless coin. In this way, they will necessarily leave the grand pool of genuine Bitcoin miners, and there will be more consensus between those who will remain in respect to future evolution of Bitcoin. Thus, those pools which support hard forks will voluntarily leave the scene and free space for other miners, likely more friendly toward gradual development of Bitcoin. That's why hard forks will come out as good for Bitcoin in the long haul

There will be always good and bad side of this matter if it really happen which leads to we have btc ànd btu.
I do agree, it maybe good for bitcoin but it takes time. What about miners who proceed all those transaction? I don't get it, whether they will generate block for btc or btu or even both of it? Is that mean, bitcoin fees will increase as too many transaction per second but few miners since they parted.

[megynacuna]

Maybe it's good in the long run.
But now...
Many users do not have deep knowledge in this area. I'm among them. When I read the letter from the representatives of the exchanges, I was horrified. It seemed to me that all my savings would simply depreciate. My reaction was predictable - I decided to sell bitcoin. But I resisted.
This suggests that such decisions are frightening for most users. Because of this, bitcoin becomes unstable. This is not the rule. After all, we are striving for stability.

Well the knowledgeable ones are those fighting not the opposite. That means there's something technically wrong somewhere but as to who's telling the truth we don't know until it's tried so why do we waste more time arguing? Let's reach a consensus and try all the possible solutions one after the other for a month each and decide on what to settle on afterwards.

[deisik]

This is just another theory, but it seems to be pretty consistent

So why hard forks are good for Bitcoin in the long run? In short, because they allow to get rid of rogue miners. Yesterday I read a letter signed by major cryptocurrency exchanges, and they declared that they would list Bitcoin forks (if such should emerge) as just any other altcoin out there. Basically, it means that any attempts to hard fork Bitcoin will massively and almost instantaneously backfire on those supporting them. People will naturally stick to the trusted version, and treacherous miners will be wasting their resources on mining a useless and worthless coin. In this way, they will necessarily leave the grand pool of genuine Bitcoin miners, and there will be more consensus between those who will remain in respect to future evolution of Bitcoin. Thus, those pools which support hard forks will voluntarily leave the scene and free space for other miners, likely more friendly toward gradual development of Bitcoin. That's why hard forks will come out as good for Bitcoin in the long haul

There will be always good and bad side of this matter if it really happen which leads to we have btc ànd btu.
I do agree, it maybe good for bitcoin but it takes time. What about miners who proceed all those transaction? I don't get it, whether they will generate block for btc or btu or even both of it? Is that mean, bitcoin fees will increase as too many transaction per second but few miners since they parted

The miners are in fact the least concern here

If a few of them leave (wtf, even if all of them leave), it will only make Bitcoin good since there are over 30 thousand Bitcoin full nodes running currently. Most of them are supporting SegWit (i.e. using a SegWit ready Bitcoin client), and they will be just happy to mine a Bitcoin or two if such an opportunity presents itself. Further, I don't think that miners will be able to mine both coins at the same time since if BU gets some traction, they won't have enough power to mine these coins simultaneously. If it doesn't, then mining it doesn't make any sense altogether since they will be just wasting time and money

[Dimelord]

This is just another theory, but it seems to be pretty consistent

So why hard forks are good for Bitcoin in the long run? In short, because they allow to get rid of rogue miners. Yesterday I read a letter signed by major cryptocurrency exchanges, and they declared that they would list Bitcoin forks (if such should emerge) as just any other altcoin out there. Basically, it means that any attempts to hard fork Bitcoin will massively and almost instantaneously backfire on those supporting them. People will naturally stick to the trusted version, and treacherous miners will be wasting their resources on mining a useless and worthless coin. In this way, they will necessarily leave the grand pool of genuine Bitcoin miners, and there will be more consensus between those who will remain in respect to future evolution of Bitcoin. Thus, those pools which support hard forks will voluntarily leave the scene and free space for other miners, likely more friendly toward gradual development of Bitcoin. That's why hard forks will come out as good for Bitcoin in the long haul

Looking from the perspective of miners,its good because the miners supporting BU will leave the scene and bitcoin miners would enjoy mining bitcoins continuosly.There might be a need for hard fork in future because its the only way of making some changes.

[deisik]

This is just another theory, but it seems to be pretty consistent

So why hard forks are good for Bitcoin in the long run? In short, because they allow to get rid of rogue miners. Yesterday I read a letter signed by major cryptocurrency exchanges, and they declared that they would list Bitcoin forks (if such should emerge) as just any other altcoin out there. Basically, it means that any attempts to hard fork Bitcoin will massively and almost instantaneously backfire on those supporting them. People will naturally stick to the trusted version, and treacherous miners will be wasting their resources on mining a useless and worthless coin. In this way, they will necessarily leave the grand pool of genuine Bitcoin miners, and there will be more consensus between those who will remain in respect to future evolution of Bitcoin. Thus, those pools which support hard forks will voluntarily leave the scene and free space for other miners, likely more friendly toward gradual development of Bitcoin. That's why hard forks will come out as good for Bitcoin in the long haul

Looking from the perspective of miners,its good because the miners supporting BU will leave the scene and bitcoin miners would enjoy mining bitcoins continuosly.There might be a need for hard fork in future because its the only way of making some changes

Yeah, you got my point correctly

The problem is that the BU folks (both developers and miners supporting them) will likely not leave the Bitcoin scene since they seem to be quite happy where they are now, i.e. in an alleged opposition to Bitcoin while still reaping profits off it. When they are completely on their own with their Bitcoin copycat, they will most certainly have to face the harsh reality. And the reality is that the main exchanges have already stated that they will treat BU as a completely separate coin (read altcoin) along with the old "genuine" Bitcoin. This is not something which they might quite like

[darthmaul]

This is just another theory, but it seems to be pretty consistent

So why hard forks are good for Bitcoin in the long run? In short, because they allow to get rid of rogue miners. Yesterday I read a letter signed by major cryptocurrency exchanges, and they declared that they would list Bitcoin forks (if such should emerge) as just any other altcoin out there. Basically, it means that any attempts to hard fork Bitcoin will massively and almost instantaneously backfire on those supporting them. People will naturally stick to the trusted version, and treacherous miners will be wasting their resources on mining a useless and worthless coin. In this way, they will necessarily leave the grand pool of genuine Bitcoin miners, and there will be more consensus between those who will remain in respect to future evolution of Bitcoin. Thus, those pools which support hard forks will voluntarily leave the scene and free space for other miners, likely more friendly toward gradual development of Bitcoin. That's why hard forks will come out as good for Bitcoin in the long haul

That is good assumption about bitcoins relativity. Why not, bitcoin was firstly emerged as sole coin and then other alt and shit coins came into market hindering bitcoins presence. Well it did not real hindered bitcoin because bitcoin stood like stubborn commodity in the market. Bitcoin will always backfire such actions as you said and will continue its quest of reaching to millions and in coming future to billions of population for sure.

[omashi]

I'm not sure it's good, it creates confusion for new comers, and this reckless game of "free coins" which could be as bad as "printing money", but hey it's free market, let the best team wins.

[pereira4]

I don't see them as a good thing if the resulting fork shares the same hashing algorithm, because miners will always act selfishly seeking profit, and a decrease on hashrate because some miners decide to mine some pumped shitcoin derived from a fork is not good news, but this is part of bitcoin and in the long term the market should correct this.

Forks like Bitcoin Gold pose no risk at all.

[deisik]

I don't see them as a good thing if the resulting fork shares the same hashing algorithm, because miners will always act selfishly seeking profit, and a decrease on hashrate because some miners decide to mine some pumped shitcoin derived from a fork is not good news, but this is part of bitcoin and in the long term the market should correct this.

Forks like Bitcoin Gold pose no risk at all.

Long period has elapsed since this thread was created

Nevertheless, I still stick to my guns and think that hard forks are kind of required catharsis or purge of sorts which helps Bitcoin to evolve. For example, now miners are relentlessly switching their hashrate between Bitcoin Cash and just Bitcoin which clearly shows how corrupt, inefficient and ultimately detrimental the current system is. Is this a good development? I guess yes, in the long run, since before solving a problem, you should first understand it or even see that it exists at all. You could indeed turn a blind eye to it but it certainly won't go away on its own. It could only get worse over time

[diouf67]

This is just another theory, but it seems to be pretty consistent

So why hard forks are good for Bitcoin in the long run? In short, because they allow to get rid of rogue miners. Yesterday I read a letter signed by major cryptocurrency exchanges, and they declared that they would list Bitcoin forks (if such should emerge) as just any other altcoin out there. Basically, it means that any attempts to hard fork Bitcoin will massively and almost instantaneously backfire on those supporting them. People will naturally stick to the trusted version, and treacherous miners will be wasting their resources on mining a useless and worthless coin. In this way, they will necessarily leave the grand pool of genuine Bitcoin miners, and there will be more consensus between those who will remain in respect to future evolution of Bitcoin. Thus, those pools which support hard forks will voluntarily leave the scene and free space for other miners, likely more friendly toward gradual development of Bitcoin. That's why hard forks will come out as good for Bitcoin in the long haul

I mean in the long term hard forks will have to be something that occurs because there will always be splits in the direction that bitcoin should take, of course a lot of the time the split will just be pointless but sometimes it will actually have merit, take bitcoin cash for example, there seems to have been a coin created that actually can offer value and that's why both are no co-existing.

[usorin]

Hard forks are good for bitcoin only in the situation in with there are certain errors in the blockchain and there is no other way to get rid of them. Other Ways it is like a juice it is mixed with water, to volume ios bigger but the value is lower.

[cryptoalfs76]

This is just another theory, but it seems to be pretty consistent

So why hard forks are good for Bitcoin in the long run? In short, because they allow to get rid of rogue miners. Yesterday I read a letter signed by major cryptocurrency exchanges, and they declared that they would list Bitcoin forks (if such should emerge) as just any other altcoin out there. Basically, it means that any attempts to hard fork Bitcoin will massively and almost instantaneously backfire on those supporting them. People will naturally stick to the trusted version, and treacherous miners will be wasting their resources on mining a useless and worthless coin. In this way, they will necessarily leave the grand pool of genuine Bitcoin miners, and there will be more consensus between those who will remain in respect to future evolution of Bitcoin. Thus, those pools which support hard forks will voluntarily leave the scene and free space for other miners, likely more friendly toward gradual development of Bitcoin. That's why hard forks will come out as good for Bitcoin in the long haul

According to my research and wikepedia ,and more cryptocurrencies forum,the application of hardforksegwit2x in the word of bitcoin is to segregate the witnesses of upper head and the lower head of the body of the different block channel in order to wider the way of  trading exchange,in other terms to avoid the traffic segwit2x implemented of widening the road  of every block chanel so that there no more transaction delay.but sad to say its is postponed due to some circumstances.

[aardvark15]

This is just another theory, but it seems to be pretty consistent

So why hard forks are good for Bitcoin in the long run? In short, because they allow to get rid of rogue miners. Yesterday I read a letter signed by major cryptocurrency exchanges, and they declared that they would list Bitcoin forks (if such should emerge) as just any other altcoin out there. Basically, it means that any attempts to hard fork Bitcoin will massively and almost instantaneously backfire on those supporting them. People will naturally stick to the trusted version, and treacherous miners will be wasting their resources on mining a useless and worthless coin. In this way, they will necessarily leave the grand pool of genuine Bitcoin miners, and there will be more consensus between those who will remain in respect to future evolution of Bitcoin. Thus, those pools which support hard forks will voluntarily leave the scene and free space for other miners, likely more friendly toward gradual development of Bitcoin. That's why hard forks will come out as good for Bitcoin in the long haul

Another thing that forks do when they fail to produce a competitor to Bitcoin is that it reinforces Bitcoin’s position an a strong cryptocurrency. It continues to build trust that it can stand up to scrutiny and criticism. Bitcoin may not be the best cryptocurrency in many situations but is has a huge advantage in terms of name recognition and a longer track record than other coins.

[Hydrogen]

This is an interesting topic.

Its difficult to answer due to the non-deterministic nature of markets. Its implausible to visit a parallel universe where bitcoin didn't fork to compare what the outcome would be to the current universe.

This could make it a theoretical topic with a few intangibles which could be difficult to quantify.

The answer may revolve around a basic question of: "would bitcoin be worth more if there had never been a fork". And "if the answer to that is: yes, then would that added value be worth more than whatever difficult to quantify positives which could arise as a result of forks".

I would guess there would be at least two separate sides to this debate. There would be a pro fork and perhaps an anti fork side to things as well.

[Murloc]

People will naturally stick to the trusted version, and treacherous miners will be wasting their resources on mining a useless and worthless coin.

I had the same thoughts and I'm sure that you are generaly right. Imho people will always  rather stick to the trusted Bitcoin then spontaniously changing it to any other shitcoin. But the problem is that the latest issues were not caused by people. It was planned a long time before it happened and have nothing in common with the free market.