UASF Activation

[MadGamer]

Everyone is talking about UASF activation and how this is going to be huge for the bitcoin community. The date seem to be 1st August If I'm not wrong, is the activation going to take place no matter how much services, wallets, miners and nodes are supporting the proposal or there are some criteria to follow first?

[1713921602]

1713921602

[TryNinja]

I found some reddit posts that can help you understand UASF risks and what can happen.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6drwrv/if_exchanges_dont_support_uasf_can_it_still/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6bxpsj/bip148_and_the_risks_it_entails_for_you_whether/

"Addressing the OP, the important thing to realize is that UASF is not subject to a majority or consensus of nodes. It is happening 100% for sure on 1 August: a new chain tip will split off a chain that can only be built with SegWit signalling blocks (onus on miners).

Users/businesses/miners will have to decide on what chain they're on before they can transact. Transacting on the wrong chain will see those transactions lost.

Trace Mayer gives the example of Alice buying Bob's condo. If Alice and Bob transact on the chain that gets discarded then Alice has the condo and gets her bitcoin back. Bob has neither.

That's an extreme and easily reversible example, but think about the current daily transaction volume and fees worth $1mil+ going to miners on a daily basis. Businesses and miners will have to commit decisively or lose big.

The UASF is a watershed event and it is coming."

(all credit goes to original posters)

[MadGamer]

Then It definitely looks scary IMO, people should start running more nodes and services should give their decision so users know If they should continue holding their coins in that specific service or switch to something else. I'm also curious on knowing what Trace Mayer is supporting while taking in consideration that he is an investor of BitPay that doesn't support BIP148.

[aarturka]

UASF worked perfectly on Litecoin as well as SegWit. On LTC Jihad Bu also tried to impede SW but could do nothing about UASF and lost 

[DooMAD]

UASF worked perfectly on Litecoin as well as SegWit. On LTC Jihad Bu also tried to impede SW but could do nothing about UASF and lost 

While SegWit on Litecoin was indeed a soft fork, it was activated by achieving the required mining threshold.  Miner activated.  That's an entirely different scenario to UASF.  Your statement is disingenuous at best.

Plus the UASF crowd still can't decide between themselves whether they want SegWit by itself or SegWit plus a change of mining algorithm.  And if they do decide on an algo change, what that new algo will be.  UASF is by no means a safe bet at this stage.

[-ck]

These two links are helpful.

https://www.weusecoins.com/uasf-guide/
http://www.uasf.co/

[Xester]

Everyone is talking about UASF activation and how this is going to be huge for the bitcoin community. The date seem to be 1st August If I'm not wrong, is the activation going to take place no matter how much services, wallets, miners and nodes are supporting the proposal or there are some criteria to follow first?

The UASF activation is a kind of consensus where all bitcoin stakeholders including miners, bitcoin players, exchanges, mining pools, code developers and etc. to agree on something and create a consensus. But it is obvious that UASF is activating a softwork and that will mean that segwit will be activated this august. But when we speak of a consensus there will be policies and conditions that will be placed that everybody must comply.

[BillyBobZorton]

The resume of the different possibilities is this:

95% of hashrate locks-in segwit before August 1st. No chain split at all.

51% of hashrate deploys BIP148 before August 1st. No chain split at all.

51% of hashrate deploys BIP148 after August 1st. Chain split gets resolved.

Legacy miners are compelled by the economy to switch to BIP148 after Aug 1st. Chain split gets resolved.

[DooMAD]

The resume of the different possibilities is this:

95% of hashrate locks-in segwit before August 1st. No chain split at all.

51% of hashrate deploys BIP148 before August 1st. No chain split at all.

51% of hashrate deploys BIP148 after August 1st. Chain split gets resolved.

Legacy miners are compelled by the economy to switch to BIP148 after Aug 1st. Chain split gets resolved.

In Fantasy Land, maybe.  

In reality, there are definitely more than a few different permutations you've overlooked or simply neglected to mention.  Including, not limited to, contentious splits and UASF being a complete non-event and falling flat on it's face.  Or even forming a minority chain and splitting as an altcoin.  Your post assumes a significant proportion of nodes are on board with UASF, but that remains to be seen.  51% hashrate may not cut it to avoid a chain split, particularly if the current ~750 nodes signalling doesn't increase drastically.  You also need to take into account recent support for the SegWit + 2MB compromise proposal, amongst others, eating into support for any user-activated nuclear option.

I'm hearing a lot of noise, but not seeing a lot of action to back it up.

[BillyBobZorton]

The resume of the different possibilities is this:

95% of hashrate locks-in segwit before August 1st. No chain split at all.

51% of hashrate deploys BIP148 before August 1st. No chain split at all.

51% of hashrate deploys BIP148 after August 1st. Chain split gets resolved.

Legacy miners are compelled by the economy to switch to BIP148 after Aug 1st. Chain split gets resolved.

In Fantasy Land, maybe.  

In reality, there are definitely more than a few different permutations you've overlooked or simply neglected to mention.  Including, not limited to, contentious splits and UASF being a complete non-event and falling flat on it's face.  Or even forming a minority chain and splitting as an altcoin.  Your post assumes a significant proportion of nodes are on board with UASF, but that remains to be seen.  51% hashrate may not cut it to avoid a chain split, particularly if the current ~750 nodes signalling doesn't increase drastically.  You also need to take into account recent support for the SegWit + 2MB compromise proposal, amongst others, eating into support for any user-activated nuclear option.

I'm hearing a lot of noise, but not seeing a lot of action to back it up.

The nodes are there already, now we just need the hashrate. If it gets anywhere near 30%, the domino effects begins then it's unstoppable. It only takes a small amount of hashrate to smart making the rest of miners shit their pants and have second thoughts about continuing in the ASICBOOST-bugged centralized chain.

At 51% only an idiot would still be mining legacy.

[Iranus]

The resume of the different possibilities is this:

95% of hashrate locks-in segwit before August 1st. No chain split at all.

51% of hashrate deploys BIP148 before August 1st. No chain split at all.

51% of hashrate deploys BIP148 after August 1st. Chain split gets resolved.

Legacy miners are compelled by the economy to switch to BIP148 after Aug 1st. Chain split gets resolved.

In Fantasy Land, maybe.  

In reality, there are definitely more than a few different permutations you've overlooked or simply neglected to mention.  Including, not limited to, contentious splits and UASF being a complete non-event and falling flat on it's face.  Or even forming a minority chain and splitting as an altcoin.  Your post assumes a significant proportion of nodes are on board with UASF, but that remains to be seen.  51% hashrate may not cut it to avoid a chain split, particularly if the current ~750 nodes signalling doesn't increase drastically.  You also need to take into account recent support for the SegWit + 2MB compromise proposal, amongst others, eating into support for any user-activated nuclear option.

I'm hearing a lot of noise, but not seeing a lot of action to back it up.

The nodes are there already, now we just need the hashrate. If it gets anywhere near 30%, the domino effects begins then it's unstoppable. It only takes a small amount of hashrate to smart making the rest of miners shit their pants and have second thoughts about continuing in the ASICBOOST-bugged centralized chain.

At 51% only an idiot would still be mining legacy.

I don't know where you're getting your statistics from, but currently only a very small amount of nodes are signalling for UASF.

It could change as businesses get on board and UASF draws closer, but for now it's only considered relevant because miners don't seem to be doing anything and the SegWit + hard fork proposal is disliked by a lot of Bitcoin Core supporters.

[aarturka]

UASF worked perfectly on Litecoin as well as SegWit. On LTC Jihad Bu also tried to impede SW but could do nothing about UASF and lost 

While SegWit on Litecoin was indeed a soft fork, it was activated by achieving the required mining threshold.  Miner activated.  That's an entirely different scenario to UASF.  Your statement is disingenuous at best.

I didn't say that it was activated by UASF. I mean that under UASF threat miners backed down. Same way we must make them buckle with bitcoin UASF

[BillyBobZorton]

The resume of the different possibilities is this:

95% of hashrate locks-in segwit before August 1st. No chain split at all.

51% of hashrate deploys BIP148 before August 1st. No chain split at all.

51% of hashrate deploys BIP148 after August 1st. Chain split gets resolved.

Legacy miners are compelled by the economy to switch to BIP148 after Aug 1st. Chain split gets resolved.

In Fantasy Land, maybe.  

In reality, there are definitely more than a few different permutations you've overlooked or simply neglected to mention.  Including, not limited to, contentious splits and UASF being a complete non-event and falling flat on it's face.  Or even forming a minority chain and splitting as an altcoin.  Your post assumes a significant proportion of nodes are on board with UASF, but that remains to be seen.  51% hashrate may not cut it to avoid a chain split, particularly if the current ~750 nodes signalling doesn't increase drastically.  You also need to take into account recent support for the SegWit + 2MB compromise proposal, amongst others, eating into support for any user-activated nuclear option.

I'm hearing a lot of noise, but not seeing a lot of action to back it up.

The nodes are there already, now we just need the hashrate. If it gets anywhere near 30%, the domino effects begins then it's unstoppable. It only takes a small amount of hashrate to smart making the rest of miners shit their pants and have second thoughts about continuing in the ASICBOOST-bugged centralized chain.

At 51% only an idiot would still be mining legacy.

I don't know where you're getting your statistics from, but currently only a very small amount of nodes are signalling for UASF.

It could change as businesses get on board and UASF draws closer, but for now it's only considered relevant because miners don't seem to be doing anything and the SegWit + hard fork proposal is disliked by a lot of Bitcoin Core supporters.

It's enough to cause the split. The point of UASF is to trigger this domino/snowball effect. In practice you just need a certain amount to start creating serious pressure on miners. Some big exchanges and big wallets like Electrum, Trezor and Mycelium are creating pressure by supporting it

https://twitter.com/electrumwallet/status/868845430947401729

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mycelium.wallet&reviewId=Z3A6QU9xcFRPR2QxMjZmN2hPZ2dRMGFlV0lQNW5SRUdiZnFlLWlJWVpJQnRnaW5abEJzRVZYYWFXLVlpS3FiM2xId0RPaFFaUHZQbGd1T05nQ1ZNeTduM3c&hl=en

Mycelium Developers May 27, 2017
We support BIP148 and node count doesn't really matter at this point. We will have our node ready in time. I personally hope we can get SegWit before August first but if Jihan wants war, I know where I stand. (lw)

The war is on.

[dinofelis]

The resume of the different possibilities is this:

95% of hashrate locks-in segwit before August 1st. No chain split at all.

51% of hashrate deploys BIP148 before August 1st. No chain split at all.

51% of hashrate deploys BIP148 after August 1st. Chain split gets resolved.

Legacy miners are compelled by the economy to switch to BIP148 after Aug 1st. Chain split gets resolved.

It is very funny to call this a USER activated soft fork, while in reality, it is a miner activated soft fork.  Only the miners decide on this forking.  If nobody forks, or if a small hash rate minority forks, you get a small chain forked off bitcoin's main chain which could just as well die.

The things you need for this miner activated soft fork to work out is:

1) a serious fraction of the miners needs to leave the legacy chain behind
2) exchanges need to list both legacy bitcoin and forked-off new bitcoin
3) --> the hard part: bitcoin holders need to dump their original bitcoins and buy massively forked-off bitcoin.

Are you going to dump your original bitcoins ?  Are the whales going to dump their original bitcoins to buy new ones on a fork with minority hash rate ?  Are whales going to buy up all your original bitcoins at dumping prices, and then dump the new chain to oblivion to leave you with nothing ?

In any case, selling one of both copies of your coins, at that point, is a risky proposition, because if you dump the final winner, you've lost everything.  But if you KEEP both of your copies, then the minority chain may just as well not get much traction.

In principle, the legacy chain can be overtaken by the 148 chain if they become majority hash rate.  However, the legacy miners and legacy owners better induce some HF to make a bilateral split if they go on for a while, to protect their chain from being taken over.  At that point, we'll have two bitcoins for ever.  Well, for ever:

if one of the two chains becomes too small minority, it will be killed by difficulty.  The 148 chain, if minority, will already only make a block every half an hour or so if it has 30% hash rate.  If its hash rate drops even more (depending on how the two coins evolve in the market, which, on its turn, depends on which coin people dump massively), it will come to a grinding halt.  But this can also happen to the majority chain.

==> after the fork, we have two bitcoins: the original one, and the new forked one.  Each one of them can die (chain can be abandoned by miners), and each one of them can have its value become near 0.  Nobody knows how things will go, because it will be a game of trying to induce the others to dump the final winner to get them cheap ; but at the same time, take the risk of dumping the winner and buying the loser.

Ethereum was somewhat different: most whales were also into the DAO, and hence needed the forked chain to win, to get their DAO money back.  And the fork was orchestrated by their Satoshi himself (Vitalik), with not many miners signalling their preference for the old chain.  Ethereum also has fast difficulty adjustment, so that even a 10% hash rate chain could survive.  This is a much more fun adventure.

[szpalata]

UASF worked perfectly on Litecoin as well as SegWit. On LTC Jihad Bu also tried to impede SW but could do nothing about UASF and lost 

Well let's hope they will not politicize this either and there will be a consensus on its usage and adoption so that hopefully Bitcoin will improve on its current challenges for the benefit of all.

[deisik]

I found some reddit posts that can help you understand UASF risks and what can happen.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6drwrv/if_exchanges_dont_support_uasf_can_it_still/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6bxpsj/bip148_and_the_risks_it_entails_for_you_whether/

"Addressing the OP, the important thing to realize is that UASF is not subject to a majority or consensus of nodes. It is happening 100% for sure on 1 August: a new chain tip will split off a chain that can only be built with SegWit signalling blocks (onus on miners).

Users/businesses/miners will have to decide on what chain they're on before they can transact. Transacting on the wrong chain will see those transactions lost.

Trace Mayer gives the example of Alice buying Bob's condo. If Alice and Bob transact on the chain that gets discarded then Alice has the condo and gets her bitcoin back. Bob has neither.

That's an extreme and easily reversible example, but think about the current daily transaction volume and fees worth $1mil+ going to miners on a daily basis. Businesses and miners will have to commit decisively or lose big.

The UASF is a watershed event and it is coming."

(all credit goes to original posters)

This sort of should have been expected

As the saying goes, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and that could be rephrased as extreme obstinacy invites extreme measures. That's exactly what miners and their accomplices between developers have been asking for all this time and that's what they ultimately deserve. If major exchanges accept this proposal, miners can pack their ASICs and go home (at least, those who choose to disagree)

[bartolo]

UASF worked perfectly on Litecoin as well as SegWit. On LTC Jihad Bu also tried to impede SW but could do nothing about UASF and lost 

Well let's hope they will not politicize this either and there will be a consensus on its usage and adoption so that hopefully Bitcoin will improve on its current challenges for the benefit of all.

There is much speculation about a dump after a possible hardfork but I think the dump would occur BEFORE the hardfork, many people would sell their coins because of fear and many investors would rather sell and wait a few months for the panorama to clear before buying again. This price crash would hurt miners who would see their profits fall. Therefore, those who have the most pressure right now are them, the miners are the ones who have more to lose. Maybe this will cause Jihan to give way and there will be a consensus before August 1, at least as far as Segwit is concerned.

[deisik]

It is very funny to call this a USER activated soft fork, while in reality, it is a miner activated soft fork.  Only the miners decide on this forking.  If nobody forks, or if a small hash rate minority forks, you get a small chain forked off bitcoin's main chain which could just as well die.

The things you need for this miner activated soft fork to work out is:

1) a serious fraction of the miners needs to leave the legacy chain behind
2) exchanges need to list both legacy bitcoin and forked-off new bitcoin
3) --> the hard part: bitcoin holders need to dump their original bitcoins and buy massively forked-off bitcoin.

Are you going to dump your original bitcoins ?  Are the whales going to dump their original bitcoins to buy new ones on a fork with minority hash rate ?  Are whales going to buy up all your original bitcoins at dumping prices, and then dump the new chain to oblivion to leave you with nothing ?

I don't really know if you are as insane as per usual

But even if you talk sense now (which I doubt, though), folks should look deeper into Litecoin NOW, what I have been telling for some time already. Even if everything pans out quite well for Bitcoin in the end (as it should), we will likely see a lot of strife unleashed and blood spilt in the nearest future. Jihan Boo may have lost a fight on Litecoin but he hasn't yet lost the war. So Litecoin may be the best choice right now to wait out the troubled times till the dust settles and the sun shines bright again for Bitcoin

[franky1]

I don't really know if you are as insane as per usual

But even if you talk sense now (which I doubt, though), folks should look deeper into Litecoin NOW, what I have been telling for some time already. Even if everything pans out quite well for Bitcoin in the end (as it should), we will likely see a lot of strife unleashed and blood spilt in the nearest future. Jihan Boo may have lost a fight on Litecoin but he hasn't yet lost the war. So Litecoin may be the best choice right now to wait out the troubled times till the dust settles and the sun shines bright again for Bitcoin

until litecoin starts advertising that 500,000 merchants accept LTC (using coinbase/bitpay merchant shopping cart api tools). then LTC is not going no where, its just speculative hype

as for the LTC segwit drama.. im laughing.
even the pools are still using legacy/native tx's(L addresses) for their blockrewards which shows how little they care to actually use segwit(3 addresses).
discusfish(f2pool) - LajyQBeZaBA1NkZD...
litecoinpool.org - LTCPodKwHJoVsRJn...
givemecoins - LachGCFMERH3SbVB...
multipool.us - LTr4CoxaLaKLRn9x...
if they actually needed/wanted it you should have seen by now the pools advocating for segwit to actually be using segwit keypairs by now.

this has not happened which just goes to show the reality of the situation.

just pushing for activation is meaningless unless pools and users are actually going to use it

[deisik]

I don't really know if you are as insane as per usual

But even if you talk sense now (which I doubt, though), folks should look deeper into Litecoin NOW, what I have been telling for some time already. Even if everything pans out quite well for Bitcoin in the end (as it should), we will likely see a lot of strife unleashed and blood spilt in the nearest future. Jihan Boo may have lost a fight on Litecoin but he hasn't yet lost the war. So Litecoin may be the best choice right now to wait out the troubled times till the dust settles and the sun shines bright again for Bitcoin

until litecoin starts advertising that 500,000 mrchants accept LTC (sing coinbase/bitpay merchant shopping cart api tools). then LTC is not going no where, its just speculative hype

as for the LTC segwit drama.. im laughing.
even the pools are still using legacy/native tx's(L addresses) for their blockrewards which shows how little they care to actually use segwit(3 addresses).
discusfish(f2pool) - LajyQBeZaBA1NkZD...
litecoinpool.org - LTCPodKwHJoVsRJn...
givemecoins - LachGCFMERH3SbVB...
multipool.us - LTr4CoxaLaKLRn9x...
if they actually needed/wanted it you should have seen by now the pools advocating for segwit to actually be using segwit keypairs by now.

this has not happened which just goes to show the reality of the situation.

just pushing for activation is meaningless unless pools and users are actually going to use it

I basically agree with what you say

But this is inconsequential to what I say myself. Indeed, there is not much use of SegWit in Litecoin as of now (and still less of Lightning Network). But I'm curious if you understand that it is "easier to prevent the disease than cure it"? By activating both SW and LN yesterday, Litecoin makes itself "Bitcoin-ready" today and tomorrow when people start massively leaving Bitcoin. Regarding 500,000 merchants allegedly accepting Bitcoin (let's assume that's true for a moment), these are still contributing only a tiny fraction to Bitcoin circulation while Bitcoin itself remains mostly about speculation. Further, these merchants will stop accepting Bitcoin as soon as things start to escalate (as they seem already). This doesn't mean that merchants will necessarily switch to using Litecoin (or any other coin, for that matter), this is just to say that your reference to them is as irrelevant. And last (but certainly not least), your words seem to be not what you have been telling before (about wide acceptance of Bitcoin in real life, apart from speculation) if I remember correctly. I don't think it is a nice idea overall to twist your stance as it better suits your argument