Why hard forks are good for Bitcoin

[deisik]

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 think it is in fact more complicated than that

The answer to your question (i.e. whether Bitcoin would be worth more or less without a hard fork) would not be definitive either. For example, the price might be higher without a hard fork, but what if some necessary changes or improvements wouldn't be done, and Bitcoin would eventually kick the bucket due to lack of required changes? On the other hand, with the hard fork eating away at some Bitcoin value initially, it might in fact prove very healthy for Bitcoin overall in the long run, and its price, which could fall first, would make new highs due to improvements made and thanks to the hard fork?

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[krishnapramod]

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

Miners moving back and forth between Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash isn't over yet, it is going to be cyclic process, but most importantly the good thing that is going to come out of this is a much needed solidarity in the Bitcoin mining space. Recently, when BCH surpassed Bitcoins hashrate, Slush Pool temporarily became the biggest mining pool with 20.8% and it is also worth nothing that hashrate of Slush Pool has increased around 50% since October. So while purely profit-driven miners are leaving the bitcoin mining space open for competition, it is gradually getting filled up with miners who prefer Bitcoin stability over wasting their resources on an altcoin for short-term profits.

[buwaytress]

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 think it is in fact more complicated than that

The answer to your question (i.e. whether Bitcoin would be worth more or less without a hard fork) would not be definitive either. For example, the price might be higher without a hard fork, but what if some necessary changes or improvements wouldn't be done, and Bitcoin would eventually kick the bucket due to lack of required changes? On the other hand, with the hard fork eating away at some Bitcoin value initially, it might in fact prove very healthy for Bitcoin overall in the long run, and its price, which could fall first, would make new highs due to improvements made and thanks to the hard fork?

It's a possible way to look at forking but value means very different things. For most prominent people in the scene (made prominent by the media I will add) this value is simply put as price, which is their argument for forking, ie. to stop the stifling of price.

But if forking makes it difficult or unpredictable for existing users and merchants to adopt seamlessly, that is a lot of existing value lost as a useful payment tool.

Far sighted value is also inherently more difficult to establish and I believe responsible developers attempt this.

[Lieldoryn]

The more miners will mine bitcoin cash lower of cost-effective this process. For all his desire, the miners will not be able to do so and therefore will be forced to go back to mining bitcoin. You don't think that they're so ideological in their anti bitcoin that deliberately will suffer losses? There is nothing they can do about it. Such difficulties can only be carried out in a short period of time for speculation.

[Coins and Hardwork]

Is this what happened just this past couple of days that BCH is having a bubble and now that bitcoin is regaining the price, the BCH is slightly getting sunked down? People will be still putting their trust into the coin they used and used to trust crypto currency, the new ones may have a good feature that solved the real bitcoin's short comings, but I guess it is the hit back of it's popularity and demand.

[Hazaki]

The problem today is that a lot of people are confused between segwits and hard forks . But this time , the Segwit2x ( segregate witness 2x) isn't just an improvement to the block size of an additional 1Mb making the total of each block 2Mb  , it is also a hard fork because it won't be adequate with the old blocks of which is consisted the existing blockchain  . So technically this will be a totally new altcoin created off this Segwit2x and a brand new blockchain . But to make it effective mines must be okay with it and thus improving their hardware . So miners didn't agree to it and even the original bitcoin team didn't and that's why it got canceled . This segwit2x would have provided lots of improvements to the blockchain making transactions much faster and we hope that the bitcoin core team find a solution as soon as possible .

[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

Miners moving back and forth between Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash isn't over yet, it is going to be cyclic process, but most importantly the good thing that is going to come out of this is a much needed solidarity in the Bitcoin mining space. Recently, when BCH surpassed Bitcoins hashrate, Slush Pool temporarily became the biggest mining pool with 20.8% and it is also worth nothing that hashrate of Slush Pool has increased around 50% since October. So while purely profit-driven miners are leaving the bitcoin mining space open for competition, it is gradually getting filled up with miners who prefer Bitcoin stability over wasting their resources on an altcoin for short-term profits.

I see your point but there are a few reservations

First of all, miners which are mining Bitcoin Cash are not wasting their resources for short-term profits as you claim. They sell the coins they have mined, and they receive the same dollars (or whatever) as with selling the regular Bitcoin. Further, since mining Bitcoin Cash is more profitable, they in fact earn more than they would have earned with Bitcoin if they had continued to mine it. The bottom line is that they turn out more powerful at the end of the day (read gain more resources) than those who didn't switch and chose not to jump at the opportunity presented

[magz]

This is for increasing the blocksize parameter. Volume of Bitcoin users rapidly increasing that is why it is getting very hard to transact or mine Bitcoin. If the blocksize will be increase ,it may double the volume of transactions to be handled in the same time of span. This is definitely very advantageous to us. Everything has to be appropriately maintain for the reliability of the network.

[xIIImaL]

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.

That is happens this time dude. Some large mining pools move towards to the BCH instead of keep supporting bitcoin and sticking with the short term bump coin. I do know still those people are experienced in that. Why they goes to take these kind of decisions.
If you are have plan to hold atleast 6 months or long terms. Either both of these bitcoin will be option invest your fund.
When segwit2x hard fork we see the increasing of blocks last time in the time of August 1st. Since failed this time. We should keep support it.

[Visbay]

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 think it is in fact more complicated than that

The answer to your question (i.e. whether Bitcoin would be worth more or less without a hard fork) would not be definitive either. For example, the price might be higher without a hard fork, but what if some necessary changes or improvements wouldn't be done, and Bitcoin would eventually kick the bucket due to lack of required changes? On the other hand, with the hard fork eating away at some Bitcoin value initially, it might in fact prove very healthy for Bitcoin overall in the long run, and its price, which could fall first, would make new highs due to improvements made and thanks to the hard fork?

Well I think bitcoin learn a lot of things from its past and bitcoin know very well how to handle fork and any other challenges because I remember when china banned bitcoin so that time was very tough for bitcoin and the way bitcoin fight against china so must appreciate bitcoin so now any fork for bitcoin make it more strong.

[Clairvoyance]

Forks are good for bitcoin for it elevate the standards and see how the community reacts with certain updates and improvements. Like the Segwit2x most of the miners and the community doesn't support that's why it is cancelled. Also, forks are indication of development.

[roddy5]

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.

That is happens this time dude. Some large mining pools move towards to the BCH instead of keep supporting bitcoin and sticking with the short term bump coin. I do know still those people are experienced in that. Why they goes to take these kind of decisions.
If you are have plan to hold atleast 6 months or long terms. Either both of these bitcoin will be option invest your fund.
When segwit2x hard fork we see the increasing of blocks last time in the time of August 1st. Since failed this time. We should keep support it.

Maybe the good thing that forks are doing to Bitcoin is that every time there is an upcoming fork bitcoin's price are always going high because people wants to get a huge amount of the token from the fork.

[thejaytiesto]

My theory is that there can only be one major coin competing in a certain hashing algorithm.

2 big coins competing for a piece of the SHA256 pie... not gonna happen... the balance must turn somewhere, either in BTC's favor, or BCH's favor (or whatever other competing big SHA256 currency). 2 co-existing big coins fighting for the same pie, I don't see viable.

If im not mistaken, BCH will not take BTC's pie, since the biggest stakeholders support BTC that I know of.

[zombie6]

because they solve the basic problems, drawbacks in the code and make significant changes! This is also done for large speculations, because the bitcoin core team is associated with mining and pump pools and is forced to reckon with them!

[Mustion]

There are many reasons and simple hard wallets help you store bitcoin to avoid all the attacks and it is within your control instead of the others.

[deisik]

My theory is that there can only be one major coin competing in a certain hashing algorithm.

2 big coins competing for a piece of the SHA256 pie... not gonna happen... the balance must turn somewhere, either in BTC's favor, or BCH's favor (or whatever other competing big SHA256 currency). 2 co-existing big coins fighting for the same pie, I don't see viable.

If im not mistaken, BCH will not take BTC's pie, since the biggest stakeholders support BTC that I know of.

But why do you think the algo is so important?

I can as easily claim that two coins sharing the same blockchain technology (technology, mind you) are not possible (let's say not economically viable), and the balance should inevitably turn in favor of just one coin (only one should prevail, yeah). Does it make a lot of sense? I guess, no. So how is that different with an algo that a coin uses under the hood? Personally, I see no connection. You can use the same algo, and get two completely different coins each eating at their own pie

[0t3p0t]

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

For me hard forks are not only good for Bitcoin itself but also for the loyal investors and holders of Bitcoin. There are benefits that hard forks will bring to us just like free coins and another all time high. Hard forks really affects Altcoin investors as hard fork is likely to happen because Altcoins may bleed to death due to massive dump. In short hard forks makes the price to move up.

[don.kihot]

because they solve the basic problems, drawbacks in the code and make significant changes! This is also done for large speculations, because the bitcoin core team is associated with mining and pump pools and is forced to reckon with them!

The plugs did not solve the bitcoin problem. The biggest problems - long transactions and a large commission have not yet been resolved. New coins do not arouse the interest of users. Bitcoin remains the most popular

[bitcon]

Hardforks can help fixing some mistakes in a blockchain, but they make cryptofans being very nervous as Bitcoin price jumps these days.

[Noeter31]

An optimistic outlook on how Bitcoin Blockchain splits may actually help to advance the Cryptocurrency eco-system.