Are hard forks the poor developer's ICO?

[HabBear]

Depends on how the fork is done. If you just do a hardfor, it's not an ICO, but if it is hardfork and then you hold it for some premine, then it is a shitcoin like ICO.

So all hard forks are "shitcoin like ICO" according to your logic, yes? There's a premine for every hard fork, that's how they have the quantity of coin to support the airdrop of the coins that have mined from the blockchain the hard fork is targeting for takeover.

[1714779996]

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[1714779996]

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[kimochidesh]

I don't know...I have a mixed feeling for these hard forks developers.
One that, these Developers are making serious attempts to make some new improvisation in BTC with few new and unique features. On the other hand, it could be possible that some lazy developers making these forks just to encash the market cap and more no of user base without making much efforts.

Only the right time can tell the real intention of these fork developers.

[illyiller]

Depends on how the fork is done. If you just do a hardfork, it's not an ICO, but if it is hardfork and then you hold it for some premine, then it is a shitcoin like ICO.

So all hard forks are "shitcoin like ICO" according to your logic, yes? There's a premine for every hard fork, that's how they have the quantity of coin to support the airdrop of the coins that have mined from the blockchain the hard fork is targeting for takeover.

That's not really what a premine is. Consider Bitcoin Cash: it was a live hard fork of the network at a specific fork block (no snapshot + premine like BTG). What Bitcoin Gold did is this: a) UTXO snapshot, b) premine period, c) public launch of mainnet. The BTG developers are literally privately mining the blockchain as we speak while the public is on the testnet. They were fairly open about it, too.

This is what a lot of altcoin developers do, too. They either silently mine a private blockchain that is later publicly launched, or they code a premine to their private keys into the source code.

[Yakamoto]

Are hard forks the poor developer's ICO?

Two attempts since August to hard fork bitcoin, two more ahead of us. These developers just want lay claim to the best cryptocurrency and instead of creating it from scratch they feel they need to hijack bitcoin - why?

Developers who pursue hard forks really are trying to get something for nothing. And they give us something for nothing (in the airdrop) to try to get us to subscribe to their sheisty intentions.

Hard forks are great for Bitcoin, because the prove that Bitcoin is right and strong. But I don't see how anyone can have pride in supporting or developing a hard fork.

Can you?

You need a bit of influence to make a fork worth anything though, there is no way that you can have a bunch of people just decide that they want to hard fork Bitcoin and expect to make money off of it. The past forks have always had something going along with them, such as SegWit or the group of miners that wanted Bitcoin to be decentralized again, they had something going for them. If you just try to be a dev and make a hardfork off of Bitcoin, there will rarely be anything of value come out of it.

[illinest]

You need a bit of influence to make a fork worth anything though, there is no way that you can have a bunch of people just decide that they want to hard fork Bitcoin and expect to make money off of it. The past forks have always had something going along with them, such as SegWit or the group of miners that wanted Bitcoin to be decentralized again, they had something going for them. If you just try to be a dev and make a hardfork off of Bitcoin, there will rarely be anything of value come out of it.

Bitcoin Gold didn't really have influential people or important ideas involved with it. Its backers are largely unknown besides perhaps Jack Liao, who ironically runs an ASIC mining operation. The whole "making mining decentralized" line is just a gimmick. But perhaps it's an effective one given the bad blood between Bitmain and some of the community.

In the end, I think the Bitcoin Gold people were just in the right place at the right time -- between Bitcoin Cash and Segwit2x. All they needed was a couple press releases, a good name/logo, and a boogeyman (Bitmain) and all of a sudden, people think BTG matters. Crypto is so silly sometimes.

[DooMAD]

Why does it is mostly supported by miners?

They also wanted the miners to support it.

It's a no-brainer for miners.  The math is pretty simple.  You currently have an average of roughly 2000 transactions per block with the current blocksize and each of those transactions pay a fee.  If you double that to a potential ~4000 transactions per block (or more as users increasingly begin to utilise SegWit), even if the users pay a slightly smaller transaction fee, miners have the potential to collect more fees overall.

Miners aren't supporting it because the 2x developers want them to, they're doing it because there's a potential financial incentive for them.

Many now seem to making the argument that 2x has "no real improvements" and "only a few lines of code being changed" but for those with money at stake and electricity bills to pay, clearly it's a significant improvement to them.  


And for the thread as a whole, it's not just a question of what developers do.  Forks don't happen just because someone wrote some code.  People have to agree with what that code does.  Both miners and users need to see the benefit of the changes and choose to run it of their own free will if a fork is to be successful.  Which is why a fork can't be considered an attack.

• Devs and Miners can't make decisions unilaterally without Users unless they want to securing a chain with no transactions (some argue that's what could happen with 2x)
• Devs and users can't make a change unilaterally without miners (i.e. UASF) unless they want to be on a chain that no one is securing and it's problematic to transact on.
• Users and Miners can't make a unilateral change without Devs (which I don't think has been attempted yet, maybe look out for that fork next year, heh), as the code probably won't be stable and the network may be vulnerable to attack.

So unless all three come together in unison because they all see the benefit, it's likely that the fork attempt won't be successful.

[filharvey]

If we see such hard forks,it would look like that some people want to make some quick cash by creating clone of bitcoin and then,pumping and dumping it.But there seems a hidden agenda within the two hard forks,BCH and segwit 2x.

Some group may probably be belonging to china decided to first hard fork bitcoin and create BCH.Then after few months,the decided to activate segwit 2x and even if the do not get enough support,they believed that it could devalue the brand Bitcoin which would be a great success for them.

Then their plan is to pump BCH within this period itself subsequently and later claim BCH as the true bitcoin.Proving this plan,we could see now that BCH is being pumped.

So,its clear that the want to devalue the brand bitcoin and claim BCH as the real bitcoin.

But BTG hard fork is entirely different from this and it is a totally unorganized project.It does not have such motto.They might  had an idea of making some quick cash by dumping BTG coins.          

[MMysterious]

Do you consider Roger Ver, BCH's Jihan Wu and Segwit2x poor developers than ICO coins? These 3 groups alone are top 10 if not top 5. Roger Ver and Jihan Wu need no introduction in crypto world. Segwit2x are miners, developers and stakeholders that signed the New York Agreement. NYA participants consist the largest chunk of Bitcoin miners.

[SixOfFive]

I don't think these developers want to hijack BTC market. They are just trying to bring some new positive changes in BTC blockchain so that quick and best services can provided to its users. Users have a keen eye on upcoming Fork segwit2x, lets see how investor react to this forks. Hope it bring some positive and remarkable changes.

[farhaan]

Different groups of people have different motto for doing hard forks.
Hard fork in august 1 was made by a group to create a clone of bitcoin BCH and they are continuously pumping it to make it stay alive.
Another group made such hard fork on october to create BTG coins.Its a totally unorganized project.
Now,segwit 2x activation is to be done by a large group of miners who had already signed NYA and either it may replace bitcoin or bitcoin segwit 2x coins would be created.It is said that they have an hidden agenda with BCH creators and they want to replace bitcoin with BCH.
Another hard fork is expected in december which is named as Bitcoin silver.

[Agostosmori]

Maybe people who are behind those forks are the people who envy the original creator of bitcoin and the first adopters. Since the price of bitcoin is now high it will be better for them just to support a new coin and buy the generated coin at a lower price and make it popular after. Instead of doing their own ICO in which they still need to prove their coin's worth at the beginning on forks "bitcoin" is part of the new coin's name.

[jseverson]

Lol well that's an interesting analogy. I guess they could be considered similar in a nutshell? I mean, the overwhelming majority of both are scams, both are basically exploited to make quick money, and very few people trust either of them.

What's sad is both could be used to create a better cryptocurrency landscape. Hard forks should be used to improve Bitcoin, not to take over decision making. ICOs should be used to fund legitimate companies that work on tokens, not pump and dump scams. It's interesting how two completely different concepts could be so strikingly similar though.

[panju1]

Are hard forks the poor developer's ICO?

Two attempts since August to hard fork bitcoin, two more ahead of us. These developers just want lay claim to the best cryptocurrency and instead of creating it from scratch they feel they need to hijack bitcoin - why?

Developers who pursue hard forks really are trying to get something for nothing. And they give us something for nothing (in the airdrop) to try to get us to subscribe to their sheisty intentions.

Hard forks are great for Bitcoin, because the prove that Bitcoin is right and strong. But I don't see how anyone can have pride in supporting or developing a hard fork.

Can you?

Technically, forks and ICOs are different. Bitcoin Gold was not a fork, because it incorporated a pre-mine. Bitcoin cash is the best example of a fork. Right now, I think people have figured out that adding 'Bitcoin ' to a coin's name boosts valuations. That is why you have all these variants.

[777Bitcoin]

Are hard forks the poor developer's ICO?

ICO are well funded and even developers who actually do the forking. They can’t just advertised and getting the support from miners and Coinbase alike without assurance of profits of benefiting after. This is an example cooperation schemes that they actually doing for money than making the best options than bitcoin. Bitcoin cash doesn’t work will now, bitcoin Gold is nowhere to be found and this Segwit2x might have a chance but too little to even get the support 1/8 of the bitcoin community number..

[dreamer81]

Very much indeed. Hard forks can be done by any software developer with no experience at all. It's really nothing but a copy paste of a blockchain, and people should never believe developers who fork. If they are serious about their coin, they would have made a coin from scratch. It's a much better approach.

forks = scams

[DooMAD]

Very much indeed. Hard forks can be done by any software developer with no experience at all. It's really nothing but a copy paste of a blockchain, and people should never believe developers who fork. (...)

forks = scams

That's a little absolutist isn't it?  Such sweeping generalisations generally aren't conducive to keeping an open mind.  While a proposed fork can be suggested by a developer with little to no experience, that doesn't mean they all will be.  And no one should place complete trust in any developers, period.  People should judge everything on merit, purely on a case by case basis.  Don't trust human beings, or what they might say they'll do, look at what the code actually does.  It's entirely possible that there will one day be a dev team with a vision that isn't unanimous within the community, but still carries enough support to result in a change in consensus.

It's never as black and white as saying all forks are scams.  Some might be, but the possibility of a completely centralised development team who are in total control of every decision could result in unforeseen consequences, because it does involve placing blind trust and faith in the idea that those developers will always do what's best for Bitcoin.  But how can you be sure of that?  So just in case, at all times, users need to have a choice.  If there's no alternative, because there's only one choice of client, users would effectively be forced to run a client they may not necessarily agree with.  

Note that I'm not saying that every fork is great and we should jump on every bandwagon to do so.  Just that the option should be there if it's ever needed.  Think on that carefully before you dismiss the importance of freedom of choice in an open market.  

Hard forks should be used to improve Bitcoin, not to take over decision making.

Again, developers don't make all the decisions unilaterally.  They need both users and miners to support any changes.  That's why all this "takeover" talk is nonsense and this partisan rhetoric needs to stop now.  New users seem to be getting all the wrong ideas because of how people are framing this debate.  One single development team is not "in control" of Bitcoin, ergo, there is no one to "take over" from.  

I have no idea why people would even wish to see Bitcoin in their heads as some kind of centralised dictatorship, so it boggles the mind as to why they talk about it as if it already were.  Devs don't impose changes on the users.  It never has worked like that, it never will work like that.  Stop talking as though it matters whose code we're running.  It doesn't give them any special power, privilege or authority over the network.  If there is ever a change in consensus, it doesn't mean one dev team has been replaced by another.  That's all stupid crap spouted by stupid people.  I'm tired of hearing it.  Please stop.

[jpbregonje]

Is there anyone who has really kept the forked crypto and didn't sell it for BTC right after it was claimable?