what exactly is going to happen with the b2x fork?

[mdude77]

There seems to be surprisingly little info about, so I thought I'd ask some questions:

1 - It looked like the "overall consensus" among miners a few months ago was to support segwit2x.  Future articles I've found indicate that may have changed.  Which is it?

2 - Is the general consensus now that the b2x fork will be the insignificant chain?

3 - I'm guessing the mining hardware doesn't care, as the hardware is fed the work from the pools.  Right?

4 - Do we know which pools intend to support b2x? 

5 - Bitcoin "core" does NOT support segwit2x, right?

6 - Comments like this from Coinbase look a bit disconcerting:

Following the fork, we will continue referring to the current bitcoin blockchain as Bitcoin with the symbol ‘BTC’.  We will refer to the new blockchain resulting from the fork as Bitcoin2x with the symbol ‘B2X’.

If the Segwit2x change is accepted by most users, we may choose to rename these blockchains at a later date.

Edit: At the time of the fork, the existing chain will be called Bitcoin and the Segwit2x for will be called Bitcoin2x. Ultimately, we will call the fork with the most accumulated difficulty Bitcoin. We will wait for a period of time after the fork, before finalizing the naming.

I read that as "BTC as you know it be Segwit2x, or it may not be".  If the segwit2x chain becomes the higher difficulty chain, doesn't that mean all the sudden Coinbase (and other exchanges that do this) will call Bitcoin BTC, but core which also calls it BTC won't support it?

Seems like quite a mess is coming if segwit2x becomes the majority chain.

Informative replies are most welcome!!   Thanks.

M

[-ck]

Well this is really a bitcoin discussion and not mining but it's so integral to the mining discussion it's worth having it here which might be the only place miners look and miners really need to be informed to make informed decisions on what to do with their hashrate so I'll even sticky this thread. I do have an opinion on this so while I will try to summarise the situation, my explanation may be considered biased. Given the nature of this discussion and its ability to attract violent debate, flamewars and trolling I will be aggressively moderating this thread and trying to stick to discussion regarding the status and consequences of the hard fork. If that is seen as censorship then so be it.

The summary is as follows:

The New York Agreement (NYA) which led to the segwit2x idea was agreed upon by a number of economic entities and mining companies - most notably the large majority of the mining pools.

Jeff Garzik was employed to write the software for the segwit2x fork which has its own bitcoin client now known as btc1.

The bitcoin core project which consists of about 40 major contributors and ~400 ad hoc contributors did not have a single person agree to the hard fork in b2x.

The community at large is running the bitcoin client produced by the bitcoin core project.

Segwit was soft forked successfully on the bitcoin network based on the contribution of hashrate from NYA since it was made compatible with the bitcoin core project through the addition of BIP91.

Bitcoin core has continued to develop the bitcoin client separately from Jeff Garzik's btc1 client with many new features, performance enhancements, bugfixes etc.

There are no other developers working on the btc1 client and very little development has happened.

The 2x hard fork is due in about 2 weeks and is now completely incompatible with the bitcoin core client. This means that there will be a split of the chain, not a unanimously followed chain as happened with the segwit fork. Much like bitcoin cash this means that anyone who has bitcoin before the split will have equal amounts of btc and b2xcoin. However Jeff Garzik has insisted that btc1 is there to replace the existing bitcoin chain and refuses to add replay protection to b2x. This means that if you spend your coin on one chain, you might - or you might not - have your coin automatically spent on the other chain.

Most exchanges have agreed that there will be 2 chains and not a "replacement chain" as Jeff views it. This means they may or may not offer trade of both coins. However the larger exchanges are saying the bitcoin/btc name will be kept for the bitcoin core chain as we know it (there has not been universal agreement of what b2x will be called) though some are saying that if all economy moves to the b2x chain they will rename it bitcoin/btc (this is not the common standpoint.) Current futures exchanges value the b2x chain at only 0.2 x the value of bitcoin.

Of the mining pools that agreed on NYA, most have not openly said what they'll do in terms of mining power when the fork comes along, although many have NYA advertised in their coinbase signature. This is not a binding guarantee that they'll be mining b2x and changing the coinbase signature is often a process that requires restarting their pool software so even if they change their stance they may not wish to interrupt mining to change their signature signalling it. Currently ~84% of hashrate is still advertising NYA. Some have openly stated they will not be mining b2x and of the larger pools, that includes slush and f2pool. Of those entities that are saying they will definitely be mining b2x, they are insisting they are doing it because they agreed upon it and most are not open to even discussing why they wouldn't back out of the agreement. My pools - solo.ckpool.org and ckpool.org will not be mining b2x.

If the mining pools follow their current stance that means that initially the b2x chain will get 85% of the hashrate and btc will get 15% leading to a slightly slower block finding rate on the b2x chain until the first difficulty retarget and a much slower block finding rate until the first btc difficulty retarget.

If the bitcoin node counts measurable are accurate markers out there, almost all regular users are running the bitcoin core client or a light wallet that speaks to bitcoin core. This means that to them, they will only "see" the btc chain and any transactions they perform will only be guaranteed to work as expected on btc. If the bulk of the transactions occur on the btc chain, the perceived market value of btc will remain (though the instability of the network situation may lead to lack of economic confidence and affect price) and the value of b2x will fall.

I cannot predict what pools will do if they direct all their hashrate at b2x and the value of it falls dramatically but if bitcoin cash is any indication, they will simply flip back to btc to ensure they mine on the most profitable chain.

For miners this means that what pool you choose to mine on will be mining on one or the other chain after the fork. If they are not openly saying what they'll be doing you should be particularly concerned about directing your hashrate there as there is a good chance they are just assuming only one chain will exist or be relevant after the fork - unlike the segwit fork it is guaranteed that this will NOT happen. If you are mining b2x then it may be that you will only get paid on the b2x chain and if you have the bitcoin core client you will not be receiving bitcoin as you know it and will have to switch to the btc1 client.

As for this forum's position, only the btc chain as consensus agreed upon and contributed to by the bitcoin core project is considered bitcoin and any pools mining the b2x chain will be treated as altcoin pools. Btc1 is considered a hostile fork attempt to take over the network and there is no evidence of consensus in the community to support it as a replacement for bitcoin. The fact that btc1 more or less has only one developer working on it - Jeff Garzik - and he has recently announced plans for his own premined altcoin in addition to b2x, then it is actually hard to understand why the pools would even consider this a safe replacement for bitcoin and should definitely be considered when making your choices.

I cannot envision all the economic entities and exchanges suddenly flipping their position to support b2x as bitcoin, and all users switch clients to the btc1 client and only trade in b2x in light of all this information.

My personal opinion and advice to miners would be to only mine on pools that have openly stated they are mining bitcoin and not b2x. Of course I have a stake in this since my pools mine it but bear in mind that ckpool.org does not charge a fee so I make absolutely nothing from people mining there though it is a tiny pool. I expect other pools to switch as the fork approaches too, but given the mining vs value/difficulty coin switching that even the largest pools have been doing with bitcoin cash, even if they no longer agree with NYA and b2x, they can see another way to make profits.

[mdude77]

Thank you for the very informative post ck.

I'm still surprised on how little commentary I could find on this.  (Maybe I searched wrong...)

If 85% of the hashrate does point to the other chain, that could be disastrous for BTC, until difficulty re-targets.  If I do my math right, the fork is about 865 blocks into the 2,016 retarget window, leaving 1,181 blocks to be found with 15% of the hashrate.  That could take a long time.

This shall be interesting.

M

[Borisz]

I would also recommend https://bitcoin.org/en/alert/2017-10-09-segwit2x-safety in addition to what has been posted by -ck.

It has some info on which exchanges / pools will support the hard fork.

[-ck]

wrong section?

Not at all. I'm the mining moderator and the b2x fork affects all miners so we could use our own dedicated thread and its relevance to mining.

[Thetaj]

To keep this thread actually on topic related to mining:

Although many of the pools have signed on to the NYA to break the impasse of the scaling debate, many of them will probably not blindly throw hashpower towards 1 chain or the other. To be honest, I don't think even Antpool would do something so stupid.

Although I do support the NYA, activating a hardfork on Bitcoin without majority consensus and a consensus of mining power (at least over 90%) is at the least "highly problematic" and at the very worst "going to be a shitshow". What do other miners think? And if the NYA fails, what would happen to Segwit? (It was part of the package so to speak).

[Thetaj]

hopefully. But honestly, even though I'm a miner, the tx fees are getting kinda stupid.

[Nicolas Tesla]

NYA is DOA, contentious, rushed, made by closed door cartels meetings, useless, killed by future markets, not even a dev anymore (Jeff left for his own alt), Barry Silbert the creator of NYA gone ghost...

Each days that pass, more and more companies, bitcoin groups around the world and users disavow NYA !

I just fear the FUD and propaganda from the forkers, it's not won yet but if bitcoin can withstand social attacks like that, then it will be a great test of confidence for the future. I see 10 K USD as Christmas gift !

So wait for coin separating tools come online or are integrated on your favorite wallet/exchange.

Then dump S2X into oblivion.

Even if Bitcoin Core chain goes slow because of lack of hashpower just HODL and if price go down buy moaar, teach the cartels a valuable lesson !

They won't mine that shit for more than 48 hours or if it will survive it will be like Bgold or Bcash: an alt for the Fontases to PND !

[-ck]

Yeah it would be great if people talked about their opinions on the fork. To me, I think its just personally free money that I am probably gonna sell out immediately. What do you guys think??

Stick to mining related discussions to do with b2x. There is plenty of b2x related discussion in the other sections of the forum.

[andytranter]

If a big chunk of miners go to the new forked coin, just that mean it will be easier for the other miners who remain to find bitcoin?

[mdude77]

If a big chunk of miners go to the new forked coin, just that mean it will be easier for the other miners who remain to find bitcoin?

Only AFTER the difficulty readjusts.  The problem is it could take months, literally, for that to happen (if 90% of the hasrate moves off of BTC).  By then BTC as we know it would be dead, because it would take hours for a block to be found.. which means transactions will slow to the point it'll kill the system.

M

[NotFuzzyWarm]

People would be having choice to mine b2x or the btc and if the b2x mining is more profitable than the btc would have less miners left. Thus possible case may be after fork if b2x is picked by miner the btc transactions would take longer to complete.

Which is exactly what the Cabal behind NYA are literally banking on. Safe bet a lot of the activity BitCH, sorry, 'B2X' is having right now is said entities behind it buying up/mining all the current BCC (really BCH but hey, who cares if BCC name was already taken by a different coin right?) they can before the fork hits. Case in point, Bitmains insistence on only accepting 'BCC' (BCH) as payment for purchase of their miners.

[Thetaj]

People would be having choice to mine b2x or the btc and if the b2x mining is more profitable than the btc would have less miners left. Thus possible case may be after fork if b2x is picked by miner the btc transactions would take longer to complete.

Which is exactly what the Cabal behind NYA are literally banking on. Safe bet a lot of the activity BiTcH, sorry, 'B2X' is having right now is said entities behind it buying up/mining all the current BCC (really BCH but hey, who care if BCC name was already taken by a different coin right?) they can before the fork hits. Case in point, Bitmains insistence on only accepting 'BCC' (BCH) as payment for purchase of their miners.

You hit the nail on the proverbial head there. Bitmain pretty much upped their game hardcore with BCH (BCC is Bitconnect, funny how its also a scam).

I personally do not believe that Miners will be stupid enough to mine Bitcoin2x when it is not profittable. For the record, I do support the NYA just because I believe that Bitcoin must lower its transaction fees NOW rather than wait for god knows how long. But even if I was to support Bitcoin2x, I would do it in the most profittable way I can: Mining Bitcoin1x and selling for Bitcoin2x. Just like people that support BCH didn't just keep on mining BCH when it is unprofittable to mine (EDA). I don't see a reason this hard fork would be any different.

[alh]

Fork cancelled and BTC looking very bullish new ATH

Up $500 in the morning, and then down $500 in the afternoon (US times). As usual, BTC never fails to deliver on volatility! 

[-ck]

End game for the fork which could have destroyed bitcoin if they went ahead with it now. Everyone get back to work now. Unstickying this thread. Nothing left to say about it with regards to mining.