Miner activated hard fork (MAHF)

[Nefelibato]

Is there any example of MAHF? From what I have read, the BCC fork was a UAHF, so after reading many articles I have not found any MAHF.

[1714153086]

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[1714153086]

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[takuma sato]

You need consensus from several parties for people to follow your HF. I don't think miners can "activate a hardfork", if by "activate" we describe it as something that is actually functional (because anyone is free to hardfork at any time). So in practice, MAHF is not a thing. And I would argue other variants aren't as well. There is either consensus of miners, users and developers, or there isn't anything functional, the way I see it is that the method how it "activates" is not that relevant.

[pooya87]

Exactly. ^^
Bitcoin is a combination of everyone that includes miners, full nodes, regular users, developers and even the economy that is built on top of Bitcoin. Whenever there is a fork (whether hard or soft) a consensus needs to be reached among all of these groups even though some have more influence than others. If there is no consensus (MAHF, MASF, UASF, UAHF,...) the risk of chain-split grows hence these could be considered attacks on Bitcoin principles.
That is why the result of such actions are always considered a shitcoin like bitcoin-cash that was created using MAHF.

[Nefelibato]

I understand that Bitcoin Cash was a UAHF, as the article quotes.
https://blog.bitmain.com/en/uahf-contingency-plan-uasf-bip148/
SegWit is an example of UASF. What I can't find is some past event where a MAHF occurred, it's possible?

[pooya87]

SegWit is an example of UASF.

Wrong. BIP148, commonly known as UASF, made a lot of noise on social media but no real momentum in real life. It had very little node support and even less miners support. SegWit on the other hand had much more support and it was activated through another proposal known as SegWit2x although the 2x part of it (hard fork to double the weight limit) never gained any support so that part failed.

[jackg]

What I can't find is some past event where a MAHF occurred, it's possible?

I doubt there has been one or will be one since asics and nodes are separate entities.

A MAHF/SF would likely only occur if a critical vulnerability was found that needed to be patched quickly imo as it has a much higher risk of a chain split than the current model of what seems to be in its simplest form:
1. Proposal generated
2. Code changes made to show what the proposal will do
3. Miners asked to signal their cooperation in the upgrade
4. UAF only goes ahead once a majority of the hashing power is dedicated to the change (only needs to be 50% but 90-95% is normally reached pretty fast iirc after the first few signal to accept it).


Because it's being discussed, segwit was a soft fork and was activated as one at the time because there was a consensus of miners.
The chain split to bcash was probably both a miner activated hard fork of bitcoin and a user activated one as bitcoin became incompatible with it immediately (at least because they had replay protection) but needed both miners (verifiers) and nodes (propagators) to make the new chain.

[Carlton Banks]

You need consensus from several parties for people to follow your HF.

is that not tautological though? "people will agree with you, but only if they agree to it"

any miner can "activate" or "lock in" a hard fork, such expressions arguably only serve as rhetorical devices, i.e.

• bitcoin devs looking to reach consensus with users can use these sorts of words to make it sound powerful / empowering, to breed confidence
• a hostile fork could equally use such language to scare users into believing there's no escape from this strong, unstoppable force

in other words, it's marketing/PR when anyone does it really, or at least it's become that way

as everyone says though, a miner unilaterally hard forking may find themselves mining an increasingly lonely blockchain.

[Nefelibato]

Thank you all for the thoughts. Bitcoin Cash was MAHF and UAHF, I think so too.

[NotATether]

Thank you all for the thoughts. Bitcoin Cash was MAHF and UAHF, I think so too.

One could also argue that ETHW was a miner-activated hard fork, though I have no idea if any concept of the sort exists in Ethereum.

Because it's basically a lot of the out-of-business miners launching the fork without user support.

[serjent05]

Thank you all for the thoughts. Bitcoin Cash was MAHF and UAHF, I think so too.

I read that Bitcoin cash is UAHF, not MAHF, it was stated that Bitcoin Cash was activated by a minority of the users rather than the majority of miners.  Some article stated that the hard fork that creates Bitcoin cash on August 1st, 2017 was through MAHF but as far as I know, a UAHF was proposed by a group of users and developers who wanted to increase the block size limit on the Bitcoin network which is also stated in this article[1]




[1] https://coingeek.com/fork-ahead-bitcoin-cash-will-fork-bigger-blocks-august-1/

[Wind_FURY]

SegWit is an example of UASF.

Wrong. BIP148, commonly known as UASF, made a lot of noise on social media but no real momentum in real life. It had very little node support and even less miners support. SegWit on the other hand had much more support and it was activated through another proposal known as SegWit2x although the 2x part of it (hard fork to double the weight limit) never gained any support so that part failed.

It was called the "Intolerant Minority", mentioned many times as a game-theoretical idea that a minority could force the miners to activate Segwit. It's debatable that UASF was "nothing", because it wasn't just "nothing". It had its role in the activation of Segwit. Eric Lombrozo and Luke Dashjr supported it.

What was truly nothing was the 2X part. It probably had only verbal support from the signers of the New York Agreement, the fork that had very very little support/no support. In fact it was rejected by the community, plebs, influential Bitcoin people, and some Core Developers. The code for "bc1" was also buggy.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Pretty much what Carlton Banks said. Everyone's free to "activate" a hard fork, right as well as a soft fork. Reaching consensus is rather a marketing like talent, even though I (and he) could be wrong. What's needed for a network to reach consensus, is to spread the word. Unarguably there was consensus reached for the Bitcoin Cash hard fork, and it really doesn't matter how it emerged (UAHF, MAHF), especially when miners are themselves users.

SegWit is an example of UASF.

Wrong. BIP148, commonly known as UASF, made a lot of noise on social media but no real momentum in real life. It had very little node support and even less miners support. SegWit on the other hand had much more support and it was activated through another proposal known as SegWit2x although the 2x part of it (hard fork to double the weight limit) never gained any support so that part failed.

Is there a place where we, Bitcoiners post block wars, can read about this important part of the history? As far as I know, Segwit was user-activated, and miners followed.

[pooya87]

Is there a place where we, Bitcoiners post block wars, can read about this important part of the history? As far as I know, Segwit was user-activated, and miners followed.

Not really
People have their own interpretation of what went on and they report history differently too. What can not be disputed is the fact that like any other soft-fork miners started signalling for the change through S2X (verifiable on blockchain since it is reflected in block versions and coinbase scripts) and when the signalling surpassed the threshold, SegWit was locked in and was activated later.

I personally don't accept that 10% of nodes (not miners) signalling UASF forced anything on miners.


Things were a lot more complicated than that, we had people in social media pressuring miners, we had the largest spam attack in bitcoin history taking place making everyone angry (except miners I suppose), there were big businesses that used bitcoin pressuring miners, there were scammers like bcash people trying to threaten chain split with Bitmain turning into a P.I.A. with their support of "chain splitters", ...
Most of these things can be found in the news sites and on reddit and on this forum but I haven't seen anybody writing a full post mortem yet.

[Wind_FURY]

SegWit is an example of UASF.

Wrong. BIP148, commonly known as UASF, made a lot of noise on social media but no real momentum in real life. It had very little node support and even less miners support. SegWit on the other hand had much more support and it was activated through another proposal known as SegWit2x although the 2x part of it (hard fork to double the weight limit) never gained any support so that part failed.

Is there a place where we, Bitcoiners post block wars, can read about this important part of the history? As far as I know, Segwit was user-activated, and miners followed.

Read Aaron Van Wirdum's depiction in "The Long Road to Segwit". I believe it's one of the most accurate retelling on what truly happened, and it also gives everyone the context of WHY and what caused those events to happen. Although the Flat-Earthers/Anti-Core trolls/gaslighters of Bitcoin would tell you that that information is blasphemous.

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/technical/the-long-road-to-segwit-how-bitcoins-biggest-protocol-upgrade-became-reality

In fact, everyone should read all of Aaron Van Wirdum's writings.

[ABCbits]

which is also stated in this article[1]


[1] coingeek[dot]com/fork-ahead-bitcoin-cash-will-fork-bigger-blocks-august-1/

That website basically is BSV propaganda, please don't use it as reference. Who knows what kind of false information they intentionally include.

--snip--

Read Aaron Van Wirdum's depiction in "The Long Road to Segwit". I believe it's one of the most accurate retelling on what truly happened, and it also gives everyone the context of WHY and what caused those events to happen. Although the Flat-Earthers/Anti-Core trolls/gaslighters of Bitcoin would tell you that that information is blasphemous.

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/technical/the-long-road-to-segwit-how-bitcoins-biggest-protocol-upgrade-became-reality

In fact, everyone should read all of Aaron Van Wirdum's writings.

This article doesn't touch problem of block size in detail. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Block_size_limit_controversy should be good addition of Aaron's article.

[BlackHatCoiner]

I personally don't accept that 10% of nodes (not miners) signalling UASF forced anything on miners.

Me neither. I don't believe there's ever been an effective UASF, generally. My understanding is this: you signal or vote for the soft fork by running a node with the according rules. My question is: what prevents you from setting up a million nodes with these rules, pretending to be a million users?

Also, I found out this: The Blocksize War: The battle over who controls Bitcoin’s protocol rules. Maybe it's a good read.

[pooya87]

My question is: what prevents you from setting up a million nodes with these rules, pretending to be a million users?

Absolutely nothing specially since the cost is very minimal. Also this is exactly why we are using Proof of Work algorithm not something silly like Proof of Node or Stake! and we use the term "1 CPU 1 Vote" not "1 Node 1 Vote".

[takuma sato]

You need consensus from several parties for people to follow your HF.

is that not tautological though? "people will agree with you, but only if they agree to it"

any miner can "activate" or "lock in" a hard fork, such expressions arguably only serve as rhetorical devices, i.e.

• bitcoin devs looking to reach consensus with users can use these sorts of words to make it sound powerful / empowering, to breed confidence
• a hostile fork could equally use such language to scare users into believing there's no escape from this strong, unstoppable force

in other words, it's marketing/PR when anyone does it really, or at least it's become that way

as everyone says though, a miner unilaterally hard forking may find themselves mining an increasingly lonely blockchain.

Everyone will try to use their weapons to persuade each other. From their respective POVs:

Miners: "We have the most hasrate, join us or you will be transacting upon a less secure blockchain."
Devs: "We are the most technically competent developers, join us or you will be transacting over less secure code."
Exchanges: "We have the most liquidity, join us or you will not be able to buy/sell."
Hodlers: "We have the most funds, join us or we will rekt your shitcoin by dumping our split shares into your fake Bitcoin."

And so follows.

The fact that is so incredibly complex that somehow everyone agrees mutually makes Bitcoin a very solid protocol, probably immutable by now and thus valuable for anyone wanting to park money in there.

[Wind_FURY]

I personally don't accept that 10% of nodes (not miners) signalling UASF forced anything on miners.

Me neither. I don't believe there's ever been an effective UASF, generally. My understanding is this: you signal or vote for the soft fork by running a node with the according rules. My question is: what prevents you from setting up a million nodes with these rules, pretending to be a million users?

They don't have to set up a million nodes. It will depend on who is active as the Intolerant Minority, because once you have influential community members, Core Developers, and some of the popular Bitcoin merchants and exchange owners supporting the UASF, the miners must be careful. Miners are also incentivized to do what the community wants. This is debatable but I believe they will have more to lose if they are at the wrong side of the fork.

My question is: what prevents you from setting up a million nodes with these rules, pretending to be a million users?

Absolutely nothing specially since the cost is very minimal. Also this is exactly why we are using Proof of Work algorithm not something silly like Proof of Node or Stake! and we use the term "1 CPU 1 Vote" not "1 Node 1 Vote".

The UASF was where every belief/assumptions in the politics and incentives in protocol changed. It was also "discovered" that it's the full nodes that create the demand for what the miners produce. Blocks.

[pooya87]

ۤThe UASF was where every belief/assumptions in the politics and incentives in protocol changed. It was also "discovered" that it's the full nodes that create the demand for what the miners produce. Blocks.

The problems start when you start separating different parts of Bitcoin network. You can't have miners without nodes and you can't have nodes without miners. If one group or a sub-group of a group starts forcing something on others, everything will start falling apart.