Bitcoin Gold and Segwit2x upcoming forks

[hifarrer]

Hi, many people are confused between 2 different forks happening in the following days. And I've seen all different questions about it, so I'll try to explain them with simple words without going into much detail. Feel free to expand (or correct) this explanation.

First, what is fork?
A fork is like a ramification of the original Bitcoin, basically copying BTC code and adding some more features.

Bitcoin Gold (BTG) (happening around 10/26) is aiming to have a coin that can be mined using GPU processing (AKA computer video cards usually for gaming) the intention is to make it easy for regular people to mine BTG and remove some power to mining companies in China using special and expensive equipment to mine (known as ASICs).

Segwit2x (in November) is about increasing the size of the block from 1MB to 2MB but it is more controversial as developers of Bitcoin Core are against it while other miners and very influential people backed by the New York agreement are the ones pushing for this change.

In my opinion this is the fork that we should worry about, due to the different opinions there could be a lot of volatility.

[Real_Person]

Some people love the free money, but it seems really bad for Bitcoin long-term.

[hitlab]

Some people love the free money, but it seems really bad for Bitcoin long-term.

It should not affect bitcoin long term at all. It will just cause short term price swings because the market must price the new coins.

[Zarevna]

So do you think that there is a chance for Bitcoin price will drop off after Segwit2x? 

[FoxTheHuman]

These are questions I'm asking and do not know where to look for knowledge, but your topic really helps me to recognize it.

[Emoclaw]

Some people love the free money, but it seems really bad for Bitcoin long-term.

It's actually really good for Bitcoin long-term. Hard forks are great and Bitcoin was designed with them in mind. Proposals to change the Bitcoin protocol are another thing that makes Bitcoin decentralized. In the long-term, only one, the community-chosen chain will survive. This is the case with Bitcoin Cash. Although it's still fairly active, it did not influence Bitcoin at all and Bitcoin has kept growing rapidly since then.

[YuginKadoya]

In my Opinion the upcoming Fork are boosting the price of bitcoin, and I think people are very calm in the impending fork and getting their hand with the free coins was their intention in holding on to their bitcoin, and just like you said if the BTG only needs gaming GPU's to mine it then regular people that wants to get their hands on BTG would surely get them easily unlike bitcoin that needs ASIC's that was too expensive was not a great investment at all,
Well the I don't have any Idea on what's gonna happen to the November Fork and I think that will cause a lot of panic if segwit2x is behind it, that would cause a lot of panic and Risk for some users.

[hifarrer]

So do you think that there is a chance for Bitcoin price will drop off after Segwit2x? 

I think it will, but it will come back up again later as more people keeps getting into bitcoin.

[raisulmushfeq]

I am worried about segwit2x because they claim that it is the real bitcoin so they did not include reply protection (that can disturb bitcoin chain in some way). Bitcoin should stay the way it is now and not be influenced by some corporate contracts but if majority of mining power is on their hand, there is chance that they can damage the original chain to make way for their new chain. We should wait to see what happens till then and I would stick to bitcoin core because it IS the real bitcoin.

[Kakmakr]

I am not too worried about SegWit2x, because those guys are not bringing something new to the table. A 2MB upgrade to the Block size, will not make a significant change to the Mempool or bring some innovative changes to the protocol. The changes in the Bitcoin Gold on the other hand, makes me excited and I want to see how this is going to pan out in the end.

I would definitely hold on to some of my free Bitcoin Gold to see if it might give Bitcoin a run for it's money. ^smile^

[MrCrank]

So do you think that there is a chance for Bitcoin price will drop off after Segwit2x? 

Has no reason for drop price.
You can see result with Bitcoin Cash (BCC).. after SegWit, BTC price was raised, BCC dropped to 300 usd.
I think after SegWit2x will happen situation like this.

[Herbert2020]

Bitcoin Gold (BTG) (happening around 10/26) is aiming to have a coin that can be mined using GPU processing (AKA computer video cards usually for gaming) the intention is to make it easy for regular people to mine BTG and remove some power to mining companies in China using special and expensive equipment to mine (known as ASICs).

you forgot the premine part!
the bitcoin gold developer has plans to premine a large amount of bitcoin gold before releasing it and letting others mine it. i forgot how much it was but i believe it was thousands of BTG.
that alone puts this fork under the shitcoin categories. because coins that have a premine like this are only created by the developer to make money. they come along, live a little, get pumped then the dumps start and the price goes down to 1 satoshi per coin and eventually they disappear.

[illinest]

Some people love the free money, but it seems really bad for Bitcoin long-term.

It should not affect bitcoin long term at all. It will just cause short term price swings because the market must price the new coins.

It depends if there is a significant, permanent split. Let's say the Segwit2x fork causes a 50-50 split in the userbase. According to Moore's Law, that will cut the network value of each network down to merely 25% of the original network's value. This is because networks exponentially gain value as more people come online. They also exponentially lose value as more people leave the network (i.e. in a fork).

It's also possible that these forks are diluting potential investment into BTC (prospective investors putting money into other coins in addition to BTC).

[squatter]

Some people love the free money, but it seems really bad for Bitcoin long-term.

It's actually really good for Bitcoin long-term. Hard forks are great and Bitcoin was designed with them in mind. Proposals to change the Bitcoin protocol are another thing that makes Bitcoin decentralized. In the long-term, only one, the community-chosen chain will survive. This is the case with Bitcoin Cash. Although it's still fairly active, it did not influence Bitcoin at all and Bitcoin has kept growing rapidly since then.

What makes you think Bitcoin was designed with hard forks in mind? Satoshi built Bitcoin with forward compatibility; the templates (scripts) used in future versions can be processed (if not necessarily understood/validated) by older versions. This is why backward compatible soft forks are ideal for Bitcoin.

I'm not sure how Satoshi felt about hard forks. He didn't give much indication. On one hand, there is the often-cited quote that we could increase the blocksize limit by programming the fork at a block far in the future. But shortly after, he said that Bitcoin users might become increasingly tyrannical about the size of the blockchain. He didn't seem to offer any clear indication either way, suggesting that the question of future hard forks was entirely up to the user base, not him.

[Mallyx]

In my opinion this is the fork that we should worry about, due to the different opinions there could be a lot of volatility.

I think we will see more and more fork attempt on the BTC network.
It seem like a treat right now, but on the long term nobody will care anymore.

[Fire Rabbit]

Thanks for posting this. Actually I was not aware about 2 forks. Yeah I was aware about the Segwit2x and I thought that's bitcoin gold. So two forks are going to come. That means we all are going to receive free money two more times. Anyways that's good. Who don't like free money Ah? So my question is which wallet is more secure to keep bitcoins safely during the fork? Any ideas guys?

[Mallyx]

Thanks for posting this. Actually I was not aware about 2 forks. Yeah I was aware about the Segwit2x and I thought that's bitcoin gold. So two forks are going to come. That means we all are going to receive free money two more times. Anyways that's good. Who don't like free money Ah? So my question is which is more secure to keep bitcoins safely during the fork? Any ideas guys?

Just withdraw them from exchanges, services then leave them on your wallet.
For B2X, you should wait a day or two to see what's happening before making a transaction.

[Lauda]

First, what is fork?
A fork is like a ramification of the original Bitcoin, basically copying BTC code and adding some more features.

That is a completely wrong definition. A hard fork is a change which aims to either: a) Create an entirely new coin. b) Change the existing consensus rules in order to do something. A hard fork does not necessarily need to add any features, it could be a simple bug fix.

Bitcoin Gold (BTG) (happening around 10/26) is aiming to have a coin that can be mined using GPU processing (AKA computer video cards usually for gaming) the intention is to make it easy for regular people to mine BTG and remove some power to mining companies in China using special and expensive equipment to mine (known as ASICs).

Segwit2x (in November) is about increasing the size of the block from 1MB to 2MB but it is more controversial as developers of Bitcoin Core are against it while other miners and very influential people backed by the New York agreement are the ones pushing for this change.

Both of those are altcoins, and the first one is a complete joke not worth talking about.

Some people love the free money, but it seems really bad for Bitcoin long-term.

Wrong. It's exactly the opposite.

For B2X, you should wait a day or two to see what's happening before making a transaction.

Do not transact B2X unless you want to lose your Bitcoin. There is no viable replay protection.

[salihno71]

For B2X, you should wait a day or two to see what's happening before making a transaction.

Do not transact B2X unless you want to lose your Bitcoin. There is no viable replay protection.

^^ This. There is no replay protection in 2x and people should be extra careful. If you want to do it anyway, make sure to move original bitcoin (original blockchain) to the new address before spending 2x from the same old address on the new forked chain.

[Real_Person]

Some people love the free money, but it seems really bad for Bitcoin long-term.

It should not affect bitcoin long term at all. It will just cause short term price swings because the market must price the new coins.

It depends if there is a significant, permanent split. Let's say the Segwit2x fork causes a 50-50 split in the userbase. According to Moore's Law, that will cut the network value of each network down to merely 25% of the original network's value. This is because networks exponentially gain value as more people come online. They also exponentially lose value as more people leave the network (i.e. in a fork).

It's also possible that these forks are diluting potential investment into BTC (prospective investors putting money into other coins in addition to BTC).

Yes, you are a better writer than me, and I agree with your ideas regarding a ~50/50 split. Too many people are getting hooked on "magic money" without paying attention to history and reality.