Multiple forks and not moving coins

[manselr]

I was wondering what happens if multiple forks happen and you don't bother with moving your coins to access the coins on the other chains? Am I safe by not doing nothing?

For example the Bitcoin Cash hardfork happened, and I have the BCash coins in the BCash chain now, with the same addresses as I have my BTC on the Bitcoin chain.

Now with BGold, I will have coins too on the BGold chain, on the same addresses as the Bitcoin chain and BCash chain. So that's 3 different tokens on 3 different blockchains sitting on the same addresses. Is there any problem with that?


Im just waiting for the BGold fork to happen to access my BCash so I only have to move my BTC once. If I access my BCash now, I will need to move my BTC again after the BGold fork. So if I wait I will kill 2 birds with one stone.

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[ranochigo]

I was wondering what happens if multiple forks happen and you don't bother with moving your coins to access the coins on the other chains? Am I safe by not doing nothing?

Now with BGold, I will have coins too on the BGold chain, on the same addresses as the Bitcoin chain and BCash chain. So that's 3 different tokens on 3 different blockchains sitting on the same addresses. Is there any problem with that?

Depends. The main problem with having coins with similar blockchain and transaction formats means that a transaction can be valid on all of the chains. This means that if you send a coin on the BTC blockchain from a BTC address to a BTC address, you can also be sending coins on a BCH address, from a BCH address to a BCH address since the transaction is considered valid on both chains*. Resulting in merchants receiving more than what was intended.

*However, BCH saw the problem beforehand and implemented replay attack protection. They implemented this through the OP_Return (Making transactions with the message valid on Bitcoin Blockchain and invalid on BCH blockchain) and through a change in the signing mechanism. [1]

[1]https://github.com/Bitcoin-UAHF/spec/blob/master/replay-protected-sighash.md

[Karimeen]

first thing that we have to know that if a hardfork is split the blockchain,bitcoins we posses will be safe.when the the blockchain splits into two there will be two digital assets, soon after the hardfork.If you keep your money in a local wallet on your computer or your smart phone you can stay and watch what happens to the fork. And if you hold money on a blockchain exchange that will be upto the exchanges discretion how to disperse both token assets to customers, so according to my view I will not be thinking to hold cryptocurrency on an exchange ,since customers should abide the rules of that trading platform;sometimes there will be possibilities of exchanges to pause withdrawals for one or two days during and after the fork.

[r3lentleSs]

Just wait till the fork is done. Send your BTC to another adress.

Then download a

Bitcoin Cash and a Bitcoin Gold Wallet

Import your seed, from your Bitcoin Core client.

[HeRetiK]

I was wondering what happens if multiple forks happen and you don't bother with moving your coins to access the coins on the other chains? Am I safe by not doing nothing?

For example the Bitcoin Cash hardfork happened, and I have the BCash coins in the BCash chain now, with the same addresses as I have my BTC on the Bitcoin chain.

Now with BGold, I will have coins too on the BGold chain, on the same addresses as the Bitcoin chain and BCash chain. So that's 3 different tokens on 3 different blockchains sitting on the same addresses. Is there any problem with that?


Im just waiting for the BGold fork to happen to access my BCash so I only have to move my BTC once. If I access my BCash now, I will need to move my BTC again after the BGold fork. So if I wait I will kill 2 birds with one stone.

With Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Gold, as long as you hold the private keys yourself you should be fine. Bitcoin Gold apparently is still working on their replay protection, but at least they are working on it which is a good thing. Note that even if you move your BTC to new addresses before splitting your coins, a backdoored Bitcoin Cash client could potentially steal your Bitcoin Gold and vice versa. Whether that's a probable attack scenario is a different question, of course.

Just watch out for the B2X fork in November, as they don't plan on adding replay protection. This could make splitting your coins a bit more problematic.

[ulhaq]

Depends. The main problem with having coins with similar blockchain and transaction formats means that a transaction can be valid on all of the chains. This means that if you send a coin on the BTC blockchain from a BTC address to a BTC address, you can also be sending coins on a BCH address, from a BCH address to a BCH address since the transaction is considered valid on both chains*. Resulting in merchants receiving more than what was intended.

I thought this was only a risk if using an improper client? So if I were to use a bitcoin cash wallet to send bitcoin cash, it should not send bitcoin gold by mistake, right (even if replay protection was not active)? And vice-versa.

As someone else mentioned, what about the risk that one of the forks will steal coins on the other fork? In my mind, the best procedure would have been to move coins to a new address before each fork. So if BTC were sent to a new address prior to the BCH fork, and then the BTC was sent to another new address before the BCG fork, without actually claiming any coins for either BCH or BTG. 

[ranochigo]

I thought this was only a risk if using an improper client? So if I were to use a bitcoin cash wallet to send bitcoin cash, it should not send bitcoin gold by mistake, right (even if replay protection was not active)? And vice-versa.

It doesn't work that way. The whole point of a replay attack is that the same transaction is valid on two or more forks. Even if you were to use a "correct" client to send the Bitcoin Cash, the transaction may be valid on another fork. Anyone can then take the transaction and broadcast it on other forks. The recipients would be receiving more than one coin.

As someone else mentioned, what about the risk that one of the forks will steal coins on the other fork? In my mind, the best procedure would have been to move coins to a new address before each fork. So if BTC were sent to a new address prior to the BCH fork, and then the BTC was sent to another new address before the BCG fork, without actually claiming any coins for either BCH or BTG. 

You can't steal coins on another fork, and if you can do that, no one should be supporting that chain. If you're talking about the risk of clients stealing the coins, then yeah, its a prevalent risk.

[ulhaq]

I thought this was only a risk if using an improper client? So if I were to use a bitcoin cash wallet to send bitcoin cash, it should not send bitcoin gold by mistake, right (even if replay protection was not active)? And vice-versa.

It doesn't work that way. The whole point of a replay attack is that the same transaction is valid on two or more forks. Even if you were to use a "correct" client to send the Bitcoin Cash, the transaction may be valid on another fork. Anyone can then take the transaction and broadcast it on other forks. The recipients would be receiving more than one coin.

So is a lot of bitcoin gold being received erroneously by recipients then? I have not heard about anyone waiting to make bitcoin or bitcoin cash transactions because of the effect on bitcoin gold (until they implement replay protection).

Did the replay protection for bitcoin cash go bi-directionally? So that any coins sent on either of the 2 chains will not affect the other?

How could I check if any BTC/BCH I sent could be claimed as BTG by those recipients?

[ranochigo]

So is a lot of bitcoin gold being received erroneously by recipients then? I have not heard about anyone waiting to make bitcoin or bitcoin cash transactions because of the effect on bitcoin gold (until they implement replay protection).

Not necessarily. After the fork, send the BTG to an address that you control and spend the coins on the Bitcoin chain after. If the transaction on BTG chain is confirmed, they cannot execute a replay attack, no matter what.

Did the replay protection for bitcoin cash go bi-directionally? So that any coins sent on either of the 2 chains will not affect the other?

I'm not sure. Bitcoin Cash does have a different sighashing algorithm from Bitcoin. If BTG follows the sighash algorithm from Bitcoin, then yes, its protected.

How could I check if any BTC/BCH I sent could be claimed as BTG by those recipients?

Check their address. The replay attack can be done anytime as long as the transaction is valid.

[HCP]

There is no risk of replay attack with BTC, BCH and BTG.

Both of these forks implemented full two-way replay protection.

BTC transactions are not valid on BCH chain or BTG chain
BCH transactions are not valid on BTC chain or BTG chain
BTG transactions are not valid on BTC chain or BCH chain

The only risks are from private keys/seeds being compromised by "bad" wallets and your coins being stolen from other chain's if you haven't moved them to new addresses/private keys/seeds