The biggest threat to Bitcoin...

[ImI]

Noticing the recent inner-Bitcoin discussions about "Coin Validity", Bitcoin Foundation etc i think the biggest threat for a successful expansion and adoption of Bitcoin is a possible developer breakup leading to a hard fork or even several forks.

Taking into account the often difficulty and immature personalities in those circles i really see that as a big threat to Bitcoin as a whole. Even bigger than technical problems or governmental issues. Especially since adoption, capitalization and media coverage are strongly building up.

Just my 2 1/2 satoshis...

[1714292413]

1714292413

[1714292413]

1714292413

[1714292413]

1714292413

[Tesla71]

would be interesting to know the point of view of the developers.
Any statements yet?

[BlackBison]

I just posted this in another topic:

Yes that diluted the overall share of bitcoin in the cryptocurrency 'sector' from say 100% to 99%, but so what. Better a smaller share of a larger pie right?

Any valuable technology sector has multiple actors in it, not just one monopoly. Alts like ltc provide redundancy in case of a catastrophe or an alternative if bitcoin becomes idealogically unsound to some people causing large divides in the community (see the heated debate about Mike Hearn and blacklisting).

Anyone who thinks that the bitcoin community will remain totally in agreement in the future is simply either an idiot or protecting their btc holdings with their fanatically closed minded preaching (a la Goldbugs).

'Just fork bitcoin instead' I hear you cry. That isn't going to work as well. Too much confusion. Also you might get a new power struggle etc with the forking teams. Better to have competing alts in parallel the whole time. Ltc and its highly competent dev team (or someone else) can snap at Bitcoins heels continuously 'keeping them in line' and doing a good honest job.

So I hope the threat of alts will give the btc dev team the kick up the arse they need to avoid any mexican standoff type situations.

[indianplayers]

One word "Government"

[ImI]

One word "Government"

Four words "i dont think so"

 

[ImI]

I just posted this in another topic:

Yes that diluted the overall share of bitcoin in the cryptocurrency 'sector' from say 100% to 99%, but so what. Better a smaller share of a larger pie right?

Any valuable technology sector has multiple actors in it, not just one monopoly. Alts like ltc provide redundancy in case of a catastrophe or an alternative if bitcoin becomes idealogically unsound to some people causing large divides in the community (see the heated debate about Mike Hearn and blacklisting).

Anyone who thinks that the bitcoin community will remain totally in agreement in the future is simply either an idiot or protecting their btc holdings with their fanatically closed minded preaching (a la Goldbugs).

'Just fork bitcoin instead' I hear you cry. That isn't going to work as well. Too much confusion. Also you might get a new power struggle etc with the forking teams. Better to have competing alts in parallel the whole time. Ltc and its highly competent dev team (or someone else) can snap at Bitcoins heels continuously 'keeping them in line' and doing a good honest job.

So I hope the threat of alts will give the btc dev team the kick up the arse they need to avoid any mexican standoff type situations.

True, new or already working altcoins could function as a "blow-off-vent" for different approaches.

Nevertheless imo its a very real threat.

[UncleBobs]

I just posted this in another topic:

Anyone who thinks that the bitcoin community will remain totally in agreement in the future is simply either an idiot or protecting their btc holdings with their fanatically closed minded preaching (a la Goldbugs).

'Just fork bitcoin instead' I hear you cry. That isn't going to work as well. Too much confusion. Also you might get a new power struggle etc with the forking teams. Better to have competing alts in parallel the whole time. Ltc and its highly competent dev team (or someone else) can snap at Bitcoins heels continuously 'keeping them in line' and doing a good honest job.

Very well said.   The obviously greed-motivated territorial hostility towards alts has to stop.  What is going to protect you when the insiders at the Bitcoin Foundation sell bitcoin out?  Are you going to start your own foundation?  Going to fork bitcoin?  

Obviously, the answer for the regular non-cryptowizardprogrammer is "No".  You have NO POWER, except to switch to another product, in other words, an altcoin which has not been sold out, and it's very easy to do so, just use one of the exchanges, sell BTC, buy LTC, or whatever.  It's the ONLY POWER, as a consumer, that you have.

[jordan.dev]

Noticing the recent inner-Bitcoin discussions about "Coin Validity", Bitcoin Foundation etc i think the biggest threat for a successful expansion and adoption of Bitcoin is a possible developer breakup leading to a hard fork or even several forks.

Taking into account the often difficulty and immature personalities in those circles i really see that as a big threat to Bitcoin as a whole. Even bigger than technical problems or governmental issues. Especially since adoption, capitalization and media coverage are strongly building up.

Just my 2 1/2 satoshis...

100% agree.

Anyone whom believes a "hardfork" isn't in our future (ie, the creation of a legitimate trackable Bitcoin and a illegitimate untraceable) needs to re-consider their opinion.

Not that I'm for one of the other, and there are very smart people on both sides of the fence.

[beetcoin]

I just posted this in another topic:

Anyone who thinks that the bitcoin community will remain totally in agreement in the future is simply either an idiot or protecting their btc holdings with their fanatically closed minded preaching (a la Goldbugs).

'Just fork bitcoin instead' I hear you cry. That isn't going to work as well. Too much confusion. Also you might get a new power struggle etc with the forking teams. Better to have competing alts in parallel the whole time. Ltc and its highly competent dev team (or someone else) can snap at Bitcoins heels continuously 'keeping them in line' and doing a good honest job.

Very well said.   The obviously greed-motivated territorial hostility towards alts has to stop.  What is going to protect you when the insiders at the Bitcoin Foundation sell bitcoin out?  Are you going to start your own foundation?  Going to fork bitcoin?  

Obviously, the answer for the regular non-cryptowizardprogrammer is "No".  You have NO POWER, except to switch to another product, in other words, an altcoin which has not been sold out, and it's very easy to do so, just use one of the exchanges, sell BTC, buy LTC, or whatever.  It's the ONLY POWER, as a consumer, that you have.

i'm not sure what that would really do. it'd just roll the ball forward, setting things up to re-occur again. if you invest in an alt cryptocurrency, and it grows into the mainstream again, the same shit would happen. humans would corrupt it.

[Peter R]

Let's pontificate on the dynamics of "forking":


At time t = t1 the network hashing power forks 50/50 into two competing chains, A and B (due to the high-level development dispute that the OP alluded to).  Let's also assume that it is not clear which chain is "better": to most users it's six-of-one, half-a-dozen of the other.

Ok, so Chains A and B are buzzing happily along for a while....(let's assume we are in a temporarily-stable state)

Someone wants to send me a payment.  I am worried because I don't know which chain I prefer, but I do know that pre-fork coins can be spent on either chain while post-fork coins can only be spent on the chain they were mined on.  So, I would probably insist that anyone sending me money must transmit the payment to *both* chains.  

So this strategy works out for a while until I encounter someone who has coins the are valid *only* on Chain A.  In this case I think I have no choice but to accept these coins at a discount.  Since both A and B look "equal," the logical discount is 50%, at first, but eventually a free market will emerge that values post-fork Chain A and post-fork Chain B coins differently.

Now here is what I think will always collapse the fork.  Eventually, for some reason the market value of one of the chains will be greater than the other.  Say that Chain B coins start trading at only a 40% discount.  If this is the case, the miner's mining on Chain A would make more profit by switching to Chain B.  So profit-motivated miner's start moving over until the network hash rate on Chain B is such that it is no longer profitable for the new miners to switch.  

But everyone can see that Chain B appears to be winning, so people want Chain B coins even more and they start trading now at only a 30% discount.  More miners jump ship and the process repeats itself.  Eventually one chain is completely dead and the other is "bitcoin."


Does this sound reasonable?



TLDR: I think the forking dynamics result in an unstable equilibrium such that one chain eventually becomes dominant.  

[UncleBobs]

One word "Government"

One word: KILLS.

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/MURDER.HTM

[MicroGuy]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOf5MeK_N18

The Goldcoin community is aware of these dire revelations and will take all necessary steps to ensure that our currency remains true to the free and independent ideals established by Satoshi. A coin is a coin and if you have one it will always be "as good as gold".

[UncleBobs]

I am so glad that people are realizing this.  BTC, as it is now, including its guiding powers, is very flawed.  Up to this point, anyone who criticized it has been shouted down by those who have become, or are fixated on becoming, "bitcoin millionaires".

A hardfork is in the future, between those who actually GET what a non-government controlled cryptocurrency is about (and I don't include Hearn or Andreson in that camp) and those who do.  

Let's get on with it.  Let's leave the grovelling, greedy statists behind.  

[jordan.dev]

Let's pontificate on the dynamics of "forking":

Does this sound reasonable?



TLDR: I think the forking dynamics result in an unstable equilibrium such that one chain eventually becomes dominant.  

nods...yes it's the natural corse of markets... interventionism ( in this case authorities attempting to manipulate coins ) will create distortions that will eventually be worked out by market dynamics.

[UncleBobs]

i'm not sure what that would really do. it'd just roll the ball forward, setting things up to re-occur again. if you invest in an alt cryptocurrency, and it grows into the mainstream again, the same shit would happen. humans would corrupt it.

It's incremental improvement, and as people's comfort level with instantly dropping one currency for another grows, the quality of the viable products grows, just as with any other product.  After all, the unique selling proposition of cryptocurrency is freedom from state control.  No reason why we shouldn't approach that ideal asymptotically.

[RodeoX]

The loss of net neutrality. That would be awful for bitcoin. 

[ImI]

Let's pontificate on the dynamics of "forking":

...............

Does this sound reasonable?



TLDR: I think the forking dynamics result in an unstable equilibrium such that one chain eventually becomes dominant.  

True. I think that could be a scenario.

Nevertheless it would definitely damage the mainstream adoption and market valuations of all cryptocurrencies imo.

You are right when you assume that the valuations will go for chain A and chain B to 50% at first. But also both will loose alot more cause of the overall confusion and trust that was lost to mainstream adopters that werent aware of such things to happen.
If such a incident really occurs and alot of people find themselves in the middle of a nerd-/kiddy-fight with maybe thousands of US-Dollars invested even trust in cryptocurrencies in general will take a HUGE hit. Like beetcoin put it right who gurantees that the next altcoin wont run into such inner-circle-fights again?

It would lead to the insight that cryptocurrencies maybe a good mean to perform value transactions but not a good place to invest wealth.

[ImI]

The loss of net neutrality. That would be awful for bitcoin. 

Honestly i never thought of this issue, but true thats another thing to keep in mind.

[UncleBobs]

The revolution will be compromised.

[notthematrix]

all servailance on bitcoin can be easaly defeated by for example adress filter , coinjoin it can be implemented very easy.
en defeat tracebility and teante reports.
clean bitcoins is just a illusion as the 96% of dollar bills with cocaine traces.
 

[notthematrix]

The revolution will be compromised.

how can you validate bitcoins.
they are not moving place only moving adress , they stay the same bitcoin forever.
Result one day all bicoins will be tainted....
so there is no way to pull this of , tecnicaly!
its like the coke traces on dollar bills.

[Peter R]

Let's pontificate on the dynamics of "forking":

...............

Does this sound reasonable?



TLDR: I think the forking dynamics result in an unstable equilibrium such that one chain eventually becomes dominant.  

True. I think that could be a scenario.

Nevertheless it would definitely damage the mainstream adoption and market valuations of all cryptocurrencies imo.

You are right when you assume that the valuations will go for chain A and chain B to 50% at first. But also both will loose alot more cause of the overall confusion and trust that was lost to mainstream adopters that werent aware of such things to happen.
If such a incident really occurs and alot of people find themselves in the middle of a nerd-/kiddy-fight with maybe thousands of US-Dollars invested even trust in cryptocurrencies in general will take a HUGE hit. Like beetcoin put it right who gurantees that the next altcoin wont run into such inner-circle-fights again?

It would lead to the insight that cryptocurrencies maybe a good mean to perform value transactions but not a good place to invest wealth.

I see your worry, but I guess I am more optimist about the collective wisdom of our bitcoin community.  

If such a fork were credibly on the table, it would be televised in advance across the community.  I think in most disputes it would be clear before the first forked-code is downloaded which chain will win.  The miners have an incentive to "make the right choice" from the get go, so we would see all sorts of polls and surveys to help them make their decision.  Mainstream adopters would just get dragged along with the majority, without any real effort or concern on their part.

In the (extremely?) unlikely event that we do have a ~50/50 forks, again I think this would be predicted in advance.  Perhaps people running the web-wallets like Blockchain.info (the wallets the mainstream users use) could simply track the coins on both forks and calculate wallet balance based on the real-time market value of the pre and post fork coins.  Again this would be fairly transparent to the mainstream user.  Somehow, I think market forces would solve the problem very quickly without causing too much pain to the mainstream user.