how would a bitcoin technical hiccup play out these days?

[European Central Bank]

twice in the past bitcoin broke and was rapidly patched with a fork, once when billions of coins were created out of thin air in 2010 and in 2013 when mining pools had to switch back to 0.7.

in both instances bitcoin was much smaller and the community closer.

assuming something similar happened now, a possibly fatal glitch is uncovered and a non contentious fork is carried out by everyone, would that have repercussions over bitcoin's perception or would people accept it as a prudent move showing the power of consensus?

alts have the luxury of having their chains completely die for a while and no one giving a shit. would people be so forgiving when they've come to expect bitcoin to be the glue that binds everything together?

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[davis196]

Are you talking about a Hard fork?
Well,bitcoin survived all the hard forks and I think that hard forks can even help for BTC price growth,because lots of btc HODLers would want some forked "bitcoins" for free, so they can dump them and get some easy profits.That`s why people start to buy btc before the fork.
I don`t see how "a possible fatal glitch"  can be uncovered.The blockchain is running without any issues.

[European Central Bank]

Not bullshit hard forks. Prior to the fork season bitcoin has forked twice for technical emergencies in 2010 and 2013, or perhaps chain split is a better term for 2013.

There was no 'airdrop' because the old chain was broken.

Everyone moved across.

[Wind_FURY]

I believe the economic majority would only come to consensus, and support a hard fork as a last resort if the "glitch" was bad enough that it might change the coin supply, increase the size of blocks, etc.

Plus what exchange would list the glitchy "prefork Bitcoin" and what merchant would accept it if some miners wanted to keep mining it? Not one.

[1Referee]

Bitcoin isn't just a coin. It's the foundation of everything. If something happens with the most stable and trustworthy coin, the whole ecosystem will suffer from that.

People don't give a crap about altcoins, they just use them to nurse their speculative greed, while the main part of their wealth is locked in Bitcoin.

Everyone needs Bitcoin to be there, because without Bitcoin, altcoins can't and won't ever be priced like they are right now. If Bitcoin wasn't the main benchmark, altcoins would probably be worth 90% less today. In other words, it's in everyone's favor to make Bitcoin regain its strength in case something unforeseen happens.

[Proton2233]

I believe the economic majority would only come to consensus, and support a hard fork as a last resort if the "glitch" was bad enough that it might change the coin supply, increase the size of blocks, etc.

Plus what exchange would list the glitchy "prefork Bitcoin" and what merchant would accept it if some miners wanted to keep mining it? Not one.

Maybe the community would support a hard fork but this is not enough. What about the miners? The main power is concentrated in China and they are not in vain released BCH. They can fully switch their power to this coin and who will then support BTC? Consensus must always be reached. The war is disadvantageous to anyone.

[1Referee]

They can fully switch their power to this coin and who will then support BTC? Consensus must always be reached. The war is disadvantageous to anyone.

BCash has barely any liquidity to it, the majority of the miners mining BCash are keeping it without dumping just because of that.

Bitcoin's current network power is around 40,000PH while BCash hovers around 5500PH, it's impossible for anyone to profit from switching to BCash if its price doesn't rocket up at least x20.

[Pursuer]

it would depend on the "hiccup" or the bug or whatever you want to call it.

for example the first one you mentioned was clearly an invalid block that was created because of a small bug and w as fixed easily. a thing like that won't affect anything.
the other one was a client bug and had nothing to do with bitcoin. it was a bug with the new version of bitcoin core client and created a 6 block long orphaned block. which is again not a serious case in my opinion.

things like that won't affect anything. BUT the drama about them is a different matter, unfortunately. for example the drama about "bitcoin split and die because of SegWit" was a total bullshit that cased a big drop last year. there was no split but they spoon-fed everyone that there was.
so I'd say the results of any "hiccup" would depend on how much FUD is being spread about it and how much people are going to buy into that.

on the other hand if it is a serious bug threatening the security of bitcoin for good, like some vulnerability in ECC then we will have a different story.

[jseverson]

assuming something similar happened now, a possibly fatal glitch is uncovered and a non contentious fork is carried out by everyone, would that have repercussions over bitcoin's perception or would people accept it as a prudent move showing the power of consensus?

For as long as it's non contentious, I don't think it would have any long-term damaging effects. The term implies that it works out for everyone. People within the community will say that it's for the best, and people outside will realize that problems could be (easily?) fixed. The haters in between will hate regardless.

Short term, speculators may dump because it's going to be an opportunity, and it could possibly cause a bear market, but nothing beyond that. That's just how I see it though.

[Wind_FURY]

assuming something similar happened now, a possibly fatal glitch is uncovered and a non contentious fork is carried out by everyone, would that have repercussions over bitcoin's perception or would people accept it as a prudent move showing the power of consensus?

For as long as it's non contentious, I don't think it would have any long-term damaging effects. The term implies that it works out for everyone. People within the community will say that it's for the best, and people outside will realize that problems could be (easily?) fixed. The haters in between will hate regardless.

Short term, speculators may dump because it's going to be an opportunity, and it could possibly cause a bear market, but nothing beyond that. That's just how I see it though.

Be careful in using that as an argument. There is the small minority, and their sockpuppets, in the community that supports the idea that Bitcoin's soft fork to Segwit was "contentious", and does not follow "Satoshi' vision". Plus they believe that Bitcoin "bilaterally split into two", Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin Cash, and that "Bitcoin Cash is Bitcoin" because it is really "Satoshi's vision".

I hope Bitcoin Cash scales and have its blocks full as soon as possible so we can witness the same problems that's happening in Ethereum, and prove the point.

[European Central Bank]

Be careful in using that as an argument. There is the small minority, and their sockpuppets, in the community that supports the idea that Bitcoin's soft fork to Segwit was "contentious", and does not follow "Satoshi' vision". Plus they believe that Bitcoin "bilaterally split into two", Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin Cash, and that "Bitcoin Cash is Bitcoin" because it is really "Satoshi's vision".

there's a big difference between a squabbled over upgrade and a full on repair for the entire thing. you don't get the luxury of bitching about segwit if all of bitcoin is a smoking ruin.

if a fork is necessary then as long as it carries across the same parameters as previously you'd have to be a moron or an asshole to buck it.

[jseverson]

Be careful in using that as an argument. There is the small minority, and their sockpuppets, in the community that supports the idea that Bitcoin's soft fork to Segwit was "contentious", and does not follow "Satoshi' vision". Plus they believe that Bitcoin "bilaterally split into two", Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin Cash, and that "Bitcoin Cash is Bitcoin" because it is really "Satoshi's vision".

I hope Bitcoin Cash scales and have its blocks full as soon as possible so we can witness the same problems that's happening in Ethereum, and prove the point.

Oh I'm fully aware, which is why I dedicated this to them:

The haters in between will hate regardless.

They can and will spin everything to fit their narrative so it's just better to outright ignore them for the most part.

Also, they're at what now, 16MB capacity blocks? Good luck filling that up. Most crypto enthusiasts I encounter don't seem to be very fond of Bitcoin Cash. Even Litecoin handles more transactions than them if I remember correctly.

[1Referee]

Also, they're at what now, 16MB capacity blocks? Good luck filling that up. Most crypto enthusiasts I encounter don't seem to be very fond of Bitcoin Cash. Even Litecoin handles more transactions than them if I remember correctly.

BCash currently rocks 32MB blocks, and if that isn't enough, they might bump it over 100MB within a year or two.

These idiots don't understand how long it will take nodes to validate such blocks, but then again, considering that most of their nodes are controlled by one party and running on high end servers, they should be able to process them relatively smoothly.

The thing that's pretty fascinating is how BCash struggles with serious block inflation. They have said to solve it, but they quite frequently pump through 10-20 blocks per 60 minutes, which is insane. They messed up whatever was left of their fork.