Fork-Attacks on bitcoin like Bcash and B2X might become infeasible after halving

[Brandsen]

Please share your thoughts around this claim:

"Fork-Attacks on bitcoin like Bcash and B2X might become infeasible after next halving; due to the value of mining reward becoming Fee>NewCoin"

You can Fork the block reward (New-Coins)
But all the economic fee-generating-activity stays on original chain
Miners must follow the User rather than New-Coin

I haven't seen any discussion around this topic, so I'm curious if I'm missing something..

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[aleksej996]

I am unaware of any proof of any kind of attacks on Bitcoin. If you are referring to theoretical attacks then I am not sure what you mean by fork attacks.

If you fork of Bitcoin just to have a bigger block reward or to have it for yourself or something, then it never makes sense, since those will not be bitcoins, your fork currency might be worthless. You always need to follow users and economic incentives they make.

If you are talking about alleged attacks of Bitcoin Cash users that spam with transactions on Bitcoin, just so legit users can't use it. Then there is no difference when halving happens. Miners will be earning more from those attacker's mining fees then block reward, but that doesn't affect the attack, since legit users still can't use it.

[cr1776]

Please share your thoughts around this claim:

"Fork-Attacks on bitcoin like Bcash and B2X might become infeasible after next halving; due to the value of mining reward becoming Fee>NewCoin"

You can Fork the block reward (New-Coins)
But all the economic fee-generating-activity stays on original chain
Miners must follow the User rather than New-Coin

I haven't seen any discussion around this topic, so I'm curious if I'm missing something..

I wasn't really clear about the exact question...some possibilities:
1. Given the EDA gaming happening on the bitcoin cash chain right now, the bcash chain may have its next halving in 6-9 months (or less).  And could have another one a year or less later IF the gaming continues.  Is the question whether at that point the fees per block on BTC plus the mining reward will be so much greater than the BCH chain that the gaming would have to stop?

2. Or is the question whether after the next Bitcoin halving the fees per block will be larger than the block reward (or close enough to it) and so a fork would be uneconomical because the economic activity will remain on the main chain so the combination of fees and block rewards would be sufficient incentive to mine only the main chain?

Personally I think either way the fees, particularly if segwit doubles or triples volume while decreasing average fees while increasing overall fees per block, will be a big incentive to stay on the main chain. Likewise, once BCH has a fast halving next year, the arbitrage opportunity will decrease and without the economic activity the chain's value will drop.  That is the problem with the bcash EDA, it is gamable making the chain less stable than one would hope.

[Brandsen]

Please share your thoughts around this claim:

"Fork-Attacks on bitcoin like Bcash and B2X might become infeasible after next halving; due to the value of mining reward becoming Fee>NewCoin"

You can Fork the block reward (New-Coins)
But all the economic fee-generating-activity stays on original chain
Miners must follow the User rather than New-Coin

I haven't seen any discussion around this topic, so I'm curious if I'm missing something..

I wasn't really clear about the exact question...some possibilities:
1. Given the EDA gaming happening on the bitcoin cash chain right now, the bcash chain may have its next halving in 6-9 months (or less).  And could have another one a year or less later IF the gaming continues.  Is the question whether at that point the fees per block on BTC plus the mining reward will be so much greater than the BCH chain that the gaming would have to stop?

2. Or is the question whether after the next Bitcoin halving the fees per block will be larger than the block reward (or close enough to it) and so a fork would be uneconomical because the economic activity will remain on the main chain so the combination of fees and block rewards would be sufficient incentive to mine only the main chain?

Personally I think either way the fees, particularly if segwit doubles or triples volume while decreasing average fees while increasing overall fees per block, will be a big incentive to stay on the main chain. Likewise, once BCH has a fast halving next year, the arbitrage opportunity will decrease and without the economic activity the chain's value will drop.  That is the problem with the bcash EDA, it is gamable making the chain less stable than one would hope.

My question was originally related to your #2 but your #1 brings another dimension to the table.
So the effect is actually twice as strong as I anticipated.
Thank you!

[sherlock_h]

This might become infeasible long before... People are doing more than 10% over their holdings doing absolutely nothing, this kind of movement can not last long.

[luv2drnkbr]

A fork is not an attack.  It is a fork.  Bitcoin does not care about forks, because they are not Bitcoin.

[Atyp]

Bit coin will stay the bitcoin adn the Number One currency, all the new fork will be good for all cause we will earn more money like bitcoincash

[hv_]

A fork is not an attack.  It is a fork.  Bitcoin does not care about forks, because they are not Bitcoin.

Hm - that's a bit too simple. We had  e.g. a  levelDB fork - so if majority follows this fork - this is still Bitcoin.

[BillyBobZorton]

A fork is not an attack.  It is a fork.  Bitcoin does not care about forks, because they are not Bitcoin.

It IS 100% an attack when the hardforkers are trying to steal the Bitcoin brand.

There may be some "friendly-forks" that just want to hardfork BTC to issue their altcoin and they recognize themselves as an altcoin.

Another very different story is when government shills like Jeff Garzik or Roger Ver try to turn segwit2x or BCash into BTC, claiming it's the real bitcoin. In fact, Jeff Garzik claims in november exchanges will list segwit2xCoin as BTC and it will become de-facto Bitcoin (of course they are bribing miners and merchants with fiat gov-sponsored money). These are the terrorists against Bitcoin that need to be flushed.

[hv_]

A fork is not an attack.  It is a fork.  Bitcoin does not care about forks, because they are not Bitcoin.

It IS 100% an attack when the hardforkers are trying to steal the Bitcoin brand.

There may be some "friendly-forks" that just want to hardfork BTC to issue their altcoin and they recognize themselves as an altcoin.

Another very different story is when government shills like Jeff Garzik or Roger Ver try to turn segwit2x or BCash into BTC, claiming it's the real bitcoin. In fact, Jeff Garzik claims in november exchanges will list segwit2xCoin as BTC and it will become de-facto Bitcoin (of course they are bribing miners and merchants with fiat gov-sponsored money). These are the terrorists against Bitcoin that need to be flushed.

How can the SW2x be such an unfriendly one or do you think the SW (SF) part was unfriendly as well?  

So you see that there is no one or the other - that's live.

[Casimir1904]

Bitcoin is not a protected brand at all.
Those claims are stupid, you could say that BitcoinDark and Bitcoin+ are attacks then as well.
What do you say if the 2MB HF becomes the majority chain with most value and Transactions?

[Kogs]

A fork is not an attack.  It is a fork.  Bitcoin does not care about forks, because they are not Bitcoin.

Hm - that's a bit too simple. We had  e.g. a  levelDB fork - so if majority follows this fork - this is still Bitcoin.

This bugfix of the levelDB issue is a bad example as it has nothing todo with the bitcoin protocol. It fixes a bug of the Bitcoin Core client, not the bitcoin protocol.
There are other implementations of the bitcoin protocol which do not use levelDB at all (eg bitcoinj or NBitcoin).

A software fork/bugfix does not necessarily mean a bitcoin fork.
Bitcoin only forks if there are changes in the bitcoin protocol and/or consensus rules. If some implementations of the protocol don't follow the new rules you would fork bitcoin into more than one coin in the worst case.
An implementation specific bugfix unrelated to the bitcoin protocol/rules would never fork bitcoin.

[BillyBobZorton]

A fork is not an attack.  It is a fork.  Bitcoin does not care about forks, because they are not Bitcoin.

It IS 100% an attack when the hardforkers are trying to steal the Bitcoin brand.

There may be some "friendly-forks" that just want to hardfork BTC to issue their altcoin and they recognize themselves as an altcoin.

Another very different story is when government shills like Jeff Garzik or Roger Ver try to turn segwit2x or BCash into BTC, claiming it's the real bitcoin. In fact, Jeff Garzik claims in november exchanges will list segwit2xCoin as BTC and it will become de-facto Bitcoin (of course they are bribing miners and merchants with fiat gov-sponsored money). These are the terrorists against Bitcoin that need to be flushed.

How can the SW2x be such an unfriendly one or do you think the SW (SF) part was unfriendly as well? 

So you see that there is no one or the other - that's live.

Segwit wasn't a hardfork that derived in another chain/token that then claims to be the real Bitcoin. If you don't like segwit then don't accept segwit transactions, simple as that.

Bitcoin is not a protected brand at all.
Those claims are stupid, you could say that BitcoinDark and Bitcoin+ are attacks then as well.
What do you say if the 2MB HF becomes the majority chain with most value and Transactions?

Friendly forks do not claim to be the real Bitcoin. Segwit2x claims to be the real Bitcoin, it's not, regardless of how many corporate fiat whores involved bribing miners into mining it and bribing exchanges into listing it.

[aquapanic]

A fork is not an attack.  It is a fork.  Bitcoin does not care about forks, because they are not Bitcoin.

It IS 100% an attack when the hardforkers are trying to steal the Bitcoin brand.

There may be some "friendly-forks" that just want to hardfork BTC to issue their altcoin and they recognize themselves as an altcoin.

Another very different story is when government shills like Jeff Garzik or Roger Ver try to turn segwit2x or BCash into BTC, claiming it's the real bitcoin. In fact, Jeff Garzik claims in november exchanges will list segwit2xCoin as BTC and it will become de-facto Bitcoin (of course they are bribing miners and merchants with fiat gov-sponsored money). These are the terrorists against Bitcoin that need to be flushed.

How can the SW2x be such an unfriendly one or do you think the SW (SF) part was unfriendly as well? 

So you see that there is no one or the other - that's live.

Segwit wasn't a hardfork that derived in another chain/token that then claims to be the real Bitcoin. If you don't like segwit then don't accept segwit transactions, simple as that.

Bitcoin is not a protected brand at all.
Those claims are stupid, you could say that BitcoinDark and Bitcoin+ are attacks then as well.
What do you say if the 2MB HF becomes the majority chain with most value and Transactions?

Friendly forks do not claim to be the real Bitcoin. Segwit2x claims to be the real Bitcoin, it's not, regardless of how many corporate fiat whores involved bribing miners into mining it and bribing exchanges into listing it.

What is the problem with a 2MB block size? Other than the maximalist perspective that any hardfork is Not-Bitcoin and therefore anybody claiming that it is must be a corporate whore out to steal the real Bitcoin? You keep all your Bitcoins, all your Segwit forked-bitcoins and lose no value. I can understand the addition of a centralization risk of a larger block size - but at this point centralization is coming from mining outfits like Bitmain - not the dev side. And sure there's some argument Bitmain tried to block Segwit to make sure there were more on-chain transactions (more tx fees) and that Bitmain supports 2x for the same reason - but a 2MB block size isn't going to make it substantially more difficult to mine or run bitcoin nodes.

[DooMAD]

A fork is not an attack.  It is a fork.  Bitcoin does not care about forks, because they are not Bitcoin.

It IS 100% an attack when the hardforkers are trying to steal the Bitcoin brand.

There may be some "friendly-forks" that just want to hardfork BTC to issue their altcoin and they recognize themselves as an altcoin.

Another very different story is when government shills like Jeff Garzik or Roger Ver try to turn segwit2x or BCash into BTC, claiming it's the real bitcoin. In fact, Jeff Garzik claims in november exchanges will list segwit2xCoin as BTC and it will become de-facto Bitcoin (of course they are bribing miners and merchants with fiat gov-sponsored money). These are the terrorists against Bitcoin that need to be flushed.

How can the SW2x be such an unfriendly one or do you think the SW (SF) part was unfriendly as well? 

So you see that there is no one or the other - that's live.

Segwit wasn't a hardfork that derived in another chain/token that then claims to be the real Bitcoin. If you don't like segwit then don't accept segwit transactions, simple as that.

SegWit was activated by consensus.  That's all that matters.  If consensus hadn't been reached, SegWit wouldn't exist in Bitcoin.  Users, miners and non-mining nodes could have continued persuing a minority chain with SegWit in the event it hadn't gained consensus, leading to two chains, the minority chain being an altcoin.  The same applies to the 2mb blocksize.  There will either be consensus or there won't.  If there isn't consensus for 2x, again people can pursue a minority chain as an altcoin.  The thing you seem to be failing to grasp, which I doubt will change any time soon, is that like SegWit, there may be consensus for 2mb and that will then become part of Bitcoin.  If that happens, you can still follow the altcoin if you don't like 2x, simple as that.

[aleksej996]

SegWit was activated by consensus.  That's all that matters.  If consensus hadn't been reached, SegWit wouldn't exist in Bitcoin.  Users, miners and non-mining nodes could have continued persuing a minority chain with SegWit in the event it hadn't gained consensus, leading to two chains, the minority chain being an altcoin.  The same applies to the 2mb blocksize.  There will either be consensus or there won't.  If there isn't consensus for 2x, again people can pursue a minority chain as an altcoin.  The thing you seem to be failing to grasp, which I doubt will change any time soon, is that like SegWit, there may be consensus for 2mb and that will then become part of Bitcoin.  If that happens, you can still follow the altcoin if you don't like 2x, simple as that.

This is practically true, but I presume what he was referring to was that Segwit wasn't a hard fork like S2X. As I understand, there was never a hard fork on Bitcoin to this date and many things was left (like OP codes) with the intention to be implemented as a soft fork in the future. However, Sathoshi did seem to want to make a hard fork to increase the block size in the future.

[Carlton Banks]

It's totally and thoroughly hilarious.


Miners lobbyist: "Uh, how about 2MB?"

Bitcoiners: "Oh not this again..."

Miners lobbyist: "We'll call you altcoiners if you don't join!! ALTCOINER!!!"


Any, y'know, technical arguments at all guys? Because this is the Technical sub, semantic arguments are off-topic

[d5000]

Actually the initial question of the thread starter is interesting (despite of the thread being hijacked ...):

"Fork-Attacks on bitcoin like Bcash and B2X might become infeasible after next halving; due to the value of mining reward becoming Fee>NewCoin"

Your assumption depends on the hypothesis that miners are actually a "pull factor": they are the first using a new "forked" chain, users will follow miners. I think that is the case, because regular and "economic" users are more "inertial" than miners, for various reasons.

So actually it may really become more difficult to fork the Bitcoin chain to force it to adopt features that have no consensus in the community (like the 2MB increase) because miners won't follow a new fork that easily, as they expect to lose transaction fees.

So I think that, at a general level, you are right. However, Bitcoin Cash has shown that with an additional difficulty adjustment, a forked chain can survive also with a relatively small hashrate supporting it, and then it can try to grow "in the background". But this strategy forces the "forkcoin" to adopt a different branding than Bitcoin (becoming an "altcoin") and adopting replay protection, and thus it cannot be considered really an "attack".

[aquapanic]

Actually the initial question of the thread starter is interesting (despite of the thread being hijacked ...):

"Fork-Attacks on bitcoin like Bcash and B2X might become infeasible after next halving; due to the value of mining reward becoming Fee>NewCoin"

Your assumption depends on the hypothesis that miners are actually a "pull factor": they are the first using a new "forked" chain, users will follow miners. I think that is the case, because regular and "economic" users are more "inertial" than miners, for various reasons.

So actually it may really become more difficult to fork the Bitcoin chain to force it to adopt features that have no consensus in the community (like the 2MB increase) because miners won't follow a new fork that easily, as they expect to lose transaction fees.

So I think that, at a general level, you are right. However, Bitcoin Cash has shown that with an additional difficulty adjustment, a forked chain can survive also with a relatively small hashrate supporting it, and then it can try to grow "in the background". But this strategy forces the "forkcoin" to adopt a different branding than Bitcoin (becoming an "altcoin") and adopting replay protection, and thus it cannot be considered really an "attack".

I don't really think BCash was an attack. They were pretty upfront, adopting a new name and saying "this is the scaling solution we want because 1mb blocks aren't enough" (Obv it was Bitmain and miners that wanted the fork, not users - though I don't see a huge negative case for users). S2X is a different ballgame, trying to rebrand their fork as "true Bitcoin" , not adopting replay protection, doing all their negotiations in secret, etc. BCash was miners flexing, but not really an attack per se.

[xFiber]

A fork is not an attack.  It is a fork.  Bitcoin does not care about forks, because they are not Bitcoin.

It IS 100% an attack when the hardforkers are trying to steal the Bitcoin brand.

I completely agree with you on this one. I wouldn't mind the forks too much if it weren't for the fact that they have bitcoin in their name. I feel like that is trying to seduce new people and make them think they are the 'real', while in reality it's just another altcoin. This is theft perhaps even fraud. That's why I dislike having multiple forks.