SegWit2x seriously losing support?

[Ucy]

Something strange is happening right now.
 I do not fully understand what yet but it seems some members of Pro-segwit2x group are publicly withdrawing their support for SegWit2x

Could this mean the hard fork won't be going on again? Seems they aren't too happy the way Bitcoin price is shooting up or it is just normal and expected withdraws?

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[Carlton Banks]

Well, there's little more than 1 programmer working on Segwit2x, and that's a serious contrast to the Bitcoin Core team (30 or 40 programmers) when you look at the Github account for the S2x (confusing named "BTC1") software client.

So claims of industry-wide consensus, a professional team or decentralised development are looking a little different in reality. At least 1 of the NYA signatories made comments to that effect.

[exstasie]

Something strange is happening right now.
 I do not fully understand what yet but it seems some members of Pro-segwit2x group are publicly withdrawing their support for SegWit2x

Could this mean the hard fork won't be going on again? Seems they aren't too happy the way Bitcoin price is shooting up or it is just normal and expected withdraws?

And a couple hours later, we see Blockchain.info double down in support of Segwit2x. They basically issued a repeat of Xapo's statement. They will consider the strongest chain to be "Bitcoin" regardless of anything else, and will not support the minority chain in the long term (though they will likely make it available for withdrawal). See here: https://twitter.com/blockchain/status/918576340789616640

Their wallet was already less secure than a lightweight desktop client like Electrum, anyway. There's definitely no reason to use them now. But this raises an important question:

While everyone was worried about #bitcoin mining centralization, @blockchain was processing 40% of on-chain transactions.

Is the above true? If so, that could have serious ramifications for network activity when the November fork takes place. This could mean a lot of lost bitcoins. It could also mean claims that the 2X chain not only is stronger POW-wise, but has more economic activity. Source: https://twitter.com/kyletorpey/status/918583640317075457

[AtheistAKASaneBrain]

Something strange is happening right now.
 I do not fully understand what yet but it seems some members of Pro-segwit2x group are publicly withdrawing their support for SegWit2x

Could this mean the hard fork won't be going on again? Seems they aren't too happy the way Bitcoin price is shooting up or it is just normal and expected withdraws?

F2Pool controlled by chinese miner Wang Chung recently withdrew support from the "intention" signaling as he promised, so we already have Slushpool and F2Pool to survive after the hardfork:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/75wh5b/block_489492_f2pool_doesnt_signal_nya_anymore/

The question is: Is this enough hashrate to survive a potential 51% attack by the NYAers?

[gmaxwell]

And a couple hours later, we see Blockchain.info double down in support of Segwit2x. They basically issued a repeat of Xapo's statement. They will consider the strongest chain to be "Bitcoin" regardless of anything else, and will not support the minority chain in the long term (though they will likely make it available for withdrawal).

But in one sense it is the weakest possible support short of outright opposition.

It is effectively saying "we will do whatever other people do"...  So if you have a dispute between two groups, one saying "We'll do what other people do" and another group saying "We absolutely positively will not do thing-B but will instead do thing-A"  ... what do you think is going to happen?

In the presence of a considerable part of the community that won't follow B2X under almost any condition bc.i's statement is not really all that supportive.

While everyone was worried about #bitcoin mining centralization, @blockchain was processing 40% of on-chain transactions.

Is the above true?

It's something that blockchain claims but I am fairly confident that it has no basis in reality. They base the claim on how many transactions are submitted through their API, but many people pick up random transactions from the network and submit it to their API because it has, at times, been the only way to make transactions reliably display on their site, because their nodes are sometimes down.  Transactions generated by their wallet have been historically distinctive in a number of ways-- they are not generating anywhere near that number of transactions on the network.

[ekoice]

Until  now,three companies have abandoned the New York Agreement so far.

1.Bitwala
2.F2Pool.
3.Wayniloans.

Out of these,two have said that they expected that bitcoin core team would support segwit 2x and now having known that they don't support,they are also withdrawing the support.

Recently,95%of hash power was signaled towards segwit 2x.Now,f2Pool which has 10% of hash power has withdrawn.So only 85%support for segwit 2x.Its been celebrated as a great victory for the core team.

But the operator of F2Pool wang chung is already known for his controversial statements.so,we would have to wait and see whether hard fork would occur or not.

[Wind_FURY]

OP, there was really no support from the people that matter. The Core engineers, who are the best minds in Bitcoin, and the community, and I do not mean the people. I mean the ones who are running the full nodes. The good majority of them still run Core software.



They let their actions speak. "Signalling" from the miners and the merchants signing the NYA mean nothing. This is Bitcoin.

[NUFCrichard]

It does speak to the character of the people involved in the whole business of Bitcoin how the NYA agreement was made and what has happened since.
As I see it: Segwit wasn't going to get deployed, it didn't have enough support.  Big blockers wanted bigger blocks rather than Segwit, Segwitters didn't really want big blocks.

So they all agree: we do Segwit, then we double the block size. That gets enough votes and Segwit goes live, then the segwitters decide that they don't want big blocks and they already have what they want, so stop voting for the block size increase.

Is that about right? Basically the Segwit guys are screwing over the big blockers by reneging on the deal now that their part is passed?

[miguelmorales85]

Until  now,three companies have abandoned the New York Agreement so far.

1.Bitwala
2.F2Pool.
3.Wayniloans.

Out of these,two have said that they expected that bitcoin core team would support segwit 2x and now having known that they don't support,they are also withdrawing the support.

Recently,95%of hash power was signaled towards segwit 2x.Now,f2Pool which has 10% of hash power has withdrawn.So only 85%support for segwit 2x.Its been celebrated as a great victory for the core team.

But the operator of F2Pool wang chung is already known for his controversial statements.so,we would have to wait and see whether hard fork would occur or not.

If F2Pool has abandoned the New York Agreement then, from my point of view, 2X is dead.
It is one of the mayor pools in the world.

And as other has mentioned before, if it does not have the support from developers and it is something created to fulfill some shady intentions from certain individuals..

you don't need to think too much about its premature death.

[exstasie]

While everyone was worried about #bitcoin mining centralization, @blockchain was processing 40% of on-chain transactions.

Is the above true?

It's something that blockchain claims but I am fairly confident that it has no basis in reality. They base the claim on how many transactions are submitted through their API, but many people pick up random transactions from the network and submit it to their API because it has, at times, been the only way to make transactions reliably display on their site, because their nodes are sometimes down.  Transactions generated by their wallet have been historically distinctive in a number of ways-- they are not generating anywhere near that number of transactions on the network.

Thanks for the reassurance. I suspected the numbers were being fudged somehow. At the same time, I know that BCI is a favorite among noobs, so I'm definitely concerned about their support for Segwit2x should it be the stronger-POW chain. It's also not clear what timeframe Xapo and BCI are talking about. What if both chains -- at various times -- have more cumulative POW than the other? I can't tell from their posts what happens if there is no clear cut "winner" (in terms of difficulty).

Recently,95%of hash power was signaled towards segwit 2x.Now,f2Pool which has 10% of hash power has withdrawn.So only 85%support for segwit 2x.Its been celebrated as a great victory for the core team.

F2Pool said they were dropping out like a month ago. They said they would stop signalling the NYA on the next pool server restart. Why are they still signalling the NYA? There are rumors of various threats coming Wang Chun's way (from Bitmain mostly) but I don't know the details or if there is any truth to the rumors.

[Carlton Banks]

Is that about right? Basically the Segwit guys are screwing over the big blockers by reneging on the deal now that their part is passed?

No.

Supporters of Segwit BIP142 (aka Bitcoin Core's original version) weren't involved in any deal. The NYA deal was unilaterally agreed by it's miner/service company signatories, and these companies, especially the miners, were split on whether to activate Segwit BIP 142 beforehand.

And BIP91 (which was a simple block orphaning mechanism used to activate Segwit's BIP142) was written by 1 programmer, representing no-one except himself, and with the intention of resolving incompatibilities between the NYA Segwit deployment and the BIP142 Segwit deployment.

[moore100]

I don't even get why they need all those SegWit2x and Forks for bitcoin, it seems like they just try to get new coins to sell them ,as you saw in BCH it was $800 and now $300

[gmaxwell]

And BIP91

Actually, BIP91 predated that NYA entirely and was written as a tool for miners to avoid a BIP148 introduced split.

BTC1 adopted it (with some prodding by its author) and also kept its signaling the same, forever obfuscating the activation.  All of the miners I've spoken to were running segsignal (BIP91) and not 2x.

the Segwit guys

Were never involved with the "NYA" at all.

It's like your neighbors making a deal among themselves to divide up your home and assets... and now people are calling you out for reneging on an agreement that you never agreed to!

[achow101]

Actually, BIP91 predated that NYA entirely and was written as a tool for miners to avoid a BIP148 introduced split.

I don't think so. The email proposing it literally references "the Barry Silbert proposal" which, although it may not have been published at that time, was leaked a day or two before it was actually published.

[Skyborn]

Hmm interesting so is it possible that we will be able to avoid the fork if 2x keeps losing support? Let's say only 49% of the network is signaling 2x, could this mean a fork would be avoided? If not what would it take to avoid it or is it too late?

[exstasie]

Hmm interesting so is it possible that we will be able to avoid the fork if 2x keeps losing support? Let's say only 49% of the network is signaling 2x, could this mean a fork would be avoided? If not what would it take to avoid it or is it too late?

Signalling at this point doesn't mean anything. It's unlikely that any miners are actually running the 2X software anyway. And it's certainly possible that the fork may be avoided entirely if it keeps losing support. I was glad to wake up today to considerably lower NYA signalling (under 80%) over the last 144 blocks. Apparently, F2Pool has finally stopped signalling in support of it. So that's a big start.

But my main concern there is that Bitmain alone might control a majority of the global hash rate. It's still seems like things could get very messy if companies like Coinbase, Blockchain, Bitpay and Xapo -- in addition to Bitmain -- follow through on the fork.

[clip123]

This is what happens when people go behind close doors on decentralized stuff.

All of sudden you want to control bitcoin? Chinese miners are unstoppable so good luck. I support the developers who been working on Bitcoin when no one even know it existed.

[exstasie]

This is what happens when people go behind close doors on decentralized stuff.

All of sudden you want to control bitcoin? Chinese miners are unstoppable so good luck. I support the developers who been working on Bitcoin when no one even know it existed.

There's two separate issues here, and I think one of them is unfortunately being glossed over. The first is obvious: no user who understands how Bitcoin works is interested in backroom deals that alter protocol rules.

But the other issue that won't be solved by a Segwit2x failure is the matter of economic coercion, and the tendency for forkers on both sides of the debate to engage in it.

Unfortunately, much of the #NO2X crowd still doesn't seem to understand backward compatibility. Many of them continue to repeat the falsehoods that "soft forks are backward compatible" and "BIP148 was backward compatible." The reality is that soft forks can be incompatible and that BIP148 was very likely to be incompatible.

The reason this issue is important to me is that the UASF crowd was leveraging the possibility of wipeout and replay attacks to force other users (e.g. BIP141 node operators) to change their consensus rules. They did so knowing that the vast majority of the network would not be enforcing BIP148, as it was incompatible with Core (if not enforced by majority hash rate). I was especially disgusted by the lack of concern for peoples' funds that BIP148 supporters had. And unfortunately, due to the manipulative rhetoric used at the time ("BIP148 is Bitcoin", "If miners don't run BIP148 they are 51% attacking the network", "all soft forks are backward compatible") we now have quite a lot of people continuing to repeat falsehoods about the safety of contentious soft forks.

I understand why these falsehoods were spread, and I can maybe even sympathize with the reasoning from a practical standpoint. But now we are in a situation where future contentious soft forks are even more likely to cause network splits, because people have been so misinformed about what soft forks are and why they might be incompatible.

A BIP148 split would have been indistinguishable from a hard fork, and it would have been carried out on a ~ 2-month timeline. I really resent Luke and others for pushing it, as such. And I really respect the Core developers who spoke out against it. It seemed really reckless, and it's a bit upsetting that people seem able to acknowledge that Segwit2x is contentious/risky/ethically wrong, but unable to acknowledge the same of BIP148. To boot, contentious soft forks expose users to additional wipeout/reorg attack risk that doesn't exist in hard forks. The issue is compatibility (not whether you wanted Segwit). I was supporting Segwit almost 2 years ago. Doesn't mean I was willing to split the chain over it -- on a ~ 2-month timeline no less.

Speak out against backroom deals -- yes. But don't underestimate the cost of threatening peoples' money and coercing them into changing consensus rules. That goes for both sides of this debate. I absolutely don't feel like a member of the Bitcoin community anymore -- it's hard for me to accept that a community even exists now. I still believe it will remain the top cryptocurrency; in that sense, I am a Bitcoin maximalist. But my decision to hold bitcoins vs. innovative altcoins is purely a matter of financial speculation now. If Bitcoin were co-opted by the corporate Segwit2x movement, I'm not sure I would even really care anymore. I'd just pick up the pieces and move onto the next project worth believing in, and try to help to build a culture that doesn't sacrifice consensus because of one side's impatience (BIP148) or business interests (2X).

[gmaxwell]

Unfortunately, much of the #NO2X crowd still doesn't seem to understand backward compatibility. Many of them continue to repeat the falsehoods that "soft forks are backward compatible" and "BIP148 was backward compatible." The reality is that soft forks can be incompatible and that BIP148 was very likely to be incompatible.

Thanks for actually being thoughtful, though I think it is a little more subtle than you suggest:  BIP148 would have been backwards compatible IF and Only if hashrate became compatible with it.  The people arguing that it was compatible were not, I think, trying in any way to be dishonest but rather were pretty convinced that hashrate would be compatible with it when it activated (regardless of this view being justified) and to whatever extent they had doubts any failure they would attribute to hashrate not doing what it was supposed to do (regardless of this view being justified...).

I think this is an unreasonable risk and to this day I don't understand why quite a few other people thought it was an acceptable one.  But, on the other hand, they were right that hashpower would (effectively) go along with it.

Every other point I agree with, in particular your comments on the timeline of it.  I think though that I would conclude that they took a gamble and won, elsewhere we might applaud them with tremendous foresight as we often do for people successful primarily through chance...   OTOH, what they were gambling with was the safety and stability of a shared resource that we all count on...

The intervention of 2x unfortunately substantially eliminated one of the main payoffs proponents of BIP148 probably anticipated:  Rejecting the notion that miner forced capacity hardforks were something we needed to respond to on an immediate basis, thus allowing us to make more progress with less drama.  Maybe we'll be there after November.

I think the thing we should worry about isn't recriminations about BIP148 but what are reasonable expectations for consensus upgrades to Bitcoin.  I don't think it's reasonable to expect them to happen, generally, on a time frame of less than years.  It certainly isn't the case for internet infrastructure protocols like BGP, which are easier to upgrade than Bitcoin...  If a chance is well understood and widely supported, then sure Bitcoin can deploy them faster, but I think our base expectation should be years.   I think this is the fundamental disconnect that fed a lot of fuel to the short timeframe of BIP148.

[Skyborn]

Hmm interesting so is it possible that we will be able to avoid the fork if 2x keeps losing support? Let's say only 49% of the network is signaling 2x, could this mean a fork would be avoided? If not what would it take to avoid it or is it too late?

Signalling at this point doesn't mean anything. It's unlikely that any miners are actually running the 2X software anyway. And it's certainly possible that the fork may be avoided entirely if it keeps losing support. I was glad to wake up today to considerably lower NYA signalling (under 80%) over the last 144 blocks. Apparently, F2Pool has finally stopped signalling in support of it. So that's a big start.

But my main concern there is that Bitmain alone might control a majority of the global hash rate. It's still seems like things could get very messy if companies like Coinbase, Blockchain, Bitpay and Xapo -- in addition to Bitmain -- follow through on the fork.

We'll I hope, in that case, the support will  keep dropping the next couple of days and we'll hopefully end up avoiding a fork. Because I feel like this one is going go get very ugly if it goes through. It's not going to be as uneventful as the bitcoin cash one.
I saw the statement of coinbase on 2x and I must say I wasn't surprised. After the bitcoin cash outrage they felt like they had to do support the fork from the start. Still the wrong decision though.