About the Bitcoin fork, why August 1st ?

[elektra]

I have been trying to read about the Bitcoin fork, and while I don't fully understand it yet, there is one thing that confuses me most, and that is the date August 1st . Why is it said that it will be August 1st the fork will happen? How do they know the date, and is it possible it could happen before or after this date?

[Scorpion]

It's going to be a UASF.

Which stands for User Activated Soft Fork. So users are teaming up to implement Segregated Witness have set this date and plan initiating changes. This date was set to give everyone ample time to be onboard with the same fork. 

[TryNinja]

Between the date choosen of August 1st and November 15th, UASF nodes will consider all blocks invalid that do not explicitly signal support for SegWit, thus creating a fork. Within that fork, support for SegWit will be 100% which in turn triggers the activation threshold of SegWit (95%).

So, If the UASF is activated successfully then that's going to happen:

1) nodes running UASF will reject blocks which do not signal for segwit.
2) miners running UASF will reject blocks which do not signal for segwit.

All this is an attempt to force the activation of SegWit which is currently (~30%) unable to reach the required activation threshold (95%).

Why was the date of August 1, 2017 chosen?

"Because BIP9 is time based, BIP148 needs to account for the possibility for some of the hash power to exit (eg. to mine another fork) which would make block intervals longer. The August 1st date allows for the economic majority to successfully activate SegWit. Theoretically, if the hashpower drops by up to 85%, it might take up to 13 weeks to complete an activation period. In this scenario, SegWit will still activate for all BIP148 compliant nodes."

Source: http://www.uasf.co/#why-was-the-date-of-august-1-2017-chosen

[malami]

I have been trying to read about the Bitcoin fork, and while I don't fully understand it yet, there is one thing that confuses me most, and that is the date August 1st . Why is it said that it will be August 1st the fork will happen? How do they know the date, and is it possible it could happen before or after this date?

Due to the deadlock between different factions on how to upgrade bitcoin to handle a higher number of transactions some users have decided to run a user activated soft fork (UASF) with a fixed date on it. This means that those who support UASF will stop validating bitcoin transactions from those that don't accept segwit.

[squatz1]

Well, the date itself isn't something that truly matters it's really just simply the actual date in which the miners banded together to be able to get this fork done that day-- that's what they agreed on and I don't think the ACTUAL date itself has any significance in the least. Though, I must admit I do have some of the same concerns as you there bud what if some of the people that agreed to get this done back out last minute-- and these are the people that are really going to be pulling some real weight when it comes to pulling the trigger on this getting done.


I think time is going to be the only thing that's going to be able to tell on this one man, time is going to be key. I do really hope that BTC does better with this all occuring and we can once and foreall fix the issues that we currently have with the bloated system.

[olowshinenine]

Thanks for starting this thread. As a novice investor i am still trying to grasp how this will affect my portfolio. Is it recommended to convert all bitcoin into fiat before this event or convert into ether or ltc or some other alt coin, or put all your bitcoin into a paper wallet?

Is it possible that bitcoin will have no value after this and everything in my paper wallet will be worthless anyways.

[Harry Callahan]

Thanks for starting this thread. As a novice investor i am still trying to grasp how this will affect my portfolio. Is it recommended to convert all bitcoin into fiat before this event or convert into ether or ltc or some other alt coin, or put all your bitcoin into a paper wallet?

Is it possible that bitcoin will have no value after this and everything in my paper wallet will be worthless anyways.

The chances of your coins becoming worthless is none,there will be major upswings in the market without a doubt because of the uncertainty that follows with these type of events as it is a major upgrade to the network and you cannot predict how things will go.