How difficult is it for Bitcoin to hard fork? Thoughts on BTC becoming PoW/PoSV?

[budi]

How difficult would it be for Bitcoin to hard fork and incorporate some of the better ideas from altcoins?

I have also been thinking:

If Bitcoin became a PoW/PoSVelocity hybrid coin, many good things could come of it that outweigh the bad right? I'm a fan of PoSV (link to paper / FAQ), and Reddcoin will be the first coin to hard fork and implement it, but I think there would be a mass outrage if BTC hard forked and mining/ASICs were removed from the equation all together.

What if BTC hard forked and became a PoW/PoSV hybrid, then down the road hard forked again, and became pure PoSV?

This would allow time for most to prepare and adjust to the coming change. ASIC miners would hopefully have enough time to pay off their current ASIC investment to help avoid some of the outrage in removing them from the equation later. Less selling pressure from ASIC miners could help the coin as well right?

I believe that at least becoming a hybrid PoW/PoSV coin would strengthen the networks security since those who weren't able to mine BTC could receive BTC by keeping their wallets open and making transactions. And as a result there would be a better balance to the ASIC domination as of late and less worry of 51% attacks right?

Why BTC instead of some other coin? Well BTC has the top seat with the highest market cap, trading volume, adoption, and active users. It would help BTC on it's way to becoming a mainstream digital currency we could use for everything everyday.

Are my assumptions right/wrong?
Would love to hear your thoughts!

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[1Referee]

It's already nearly impossible to do 51% attack on BTC, only if certain pools will fuse together.

Bitcoin is working fine, for sure not the best/fastest coin, but it works very well. I have never been a fan of hardforks as it will cause a lot confusion.
In fact, we don't need altcoins, yes there are some very nice coins out there, but we don't need them.

These hard fork enthusiasts will always compain, now they want this, 6 months later they want another hard fork.....

[franky1]

the practical plan is to make a altcoin with all of your desires and features you want.. if people like it, they will swap bitcoins for your coin.

if they dont then so be it.

but changing bitcoin simply due to a minority's opinion is not good for bitcoin as investors will lose faith in bitcoins rules and trust, due to changes.

bitcoin is bitcoin.. if you dont like bitcoin, use something else.

[DeboraMeeks]

the practical plan is to make a altcoin with all of your desires and features you want.. if people like it, they will swap bitcoins for your coin.

if they dont then so be it.

but changing bitcoin simply due to a minority's opinion is not good for bitcoin as investors will lose faith in bitcoins rules and trust, due to changes.

bitcoin is bitcoin.. if you dont like bitcoin, use something else.

Thats what many people are doing, leaving bitcoin for others

[MegaHustlr]

Please stop encouring a hard fork with bitcoin to become a pow/pos, not worth the hassle.

[budi]

the practical plan is to make a altcoin with all of your desires and features you want.. if people like it, they will swap bitcoins for your coin.

if they dont then so be it.

but changing bitcoin simply due to a minority's opinion is not good for bitcoin as investors will lose faith in bitcoins rules and trust, due to changes.

bitcoin is bitcoin.. if you dont like bitcoin, use something else.

Thats what many people are doing, leaving bitcoin for others

It's what I have done, though I do want to see digital currencies succeed and Bitcoin has the farthest reach of them all by far.
All these thoughts and questions came from my concern that the route to mass adoption of digital currencies will be a longer one if Bitcoin doesn't adapt to the innovation/competition that has come up from other altcoins, and as a result, loses that top spot.

I've posed these questions in a few other places and it seems the general response has been that too much money is invested in Bitcoin as it is for what I've proposed to ever happen.
Thanks for the replies!

[budi]

It's already nearly impossible to do 51% attack on BTC, only if certain pools will fuse together.

Bitcoin is working fine, for sure not the best/fastest coin, but it works very well. I have never been a fan of hardforks as it will cause a lot confusion.
In fact, we don't need altcoins, yes there are some very nice coins out there, but we don't need them.

These hard fork enthusiasts will always compain, now they want this, 6 months later they want another hard fork.....

I remember hearing that CEX.io + Ghash.io could do a 51% attack, though this was a while back and "nearly impossible" isn't that reassuring

I agree Bitcoin works well, though I feel Bitcoins losing support to some of the more popular altcoins lately. Now why is that? Do you believe that the innovation that has come about in altcoins lately is bad? The upcoming hardfork in Reddcoin is a necessary one. Multipools and miners were causing so much selling pressure to such an early coin that the coin almost hit 1 satoshi. Thus the developers created PoSV

[ThePurplePlanet]

Bitcoin may change and can change but right now is unlikely. For Bitcoin to change needs a lot of things. First a thread of a malicious actor controlling 50-60% of the hashrate for an extended period of time so that it convinces users to seek solutions. As of now no real thread has been there and worked for everybody fine. Why change a winning combination? It is a recipe for disaster. Second it needs a second competitor pressuring bitcoin. As of now the competitors like litecoin are so non innovative that do not pressure bitcoin and litecoin might be the reason we might not get a better bitcoin because there is no pressure atm.

[jonald_fyookball]

I agree Bitcoin works well, though I feel Bitcoins losing support to some of the more popular altcoins lately. Now why is that?

Probably because of who you are listening to.  My sense is the opposite ... That altcoins are dying.

[budi]

I agree Bitcoin works well, though I feel Bitcoins losing support to some of the more popular altcoins lately. Now why is that?

Probably because of who you are listening to.  My sense is the opposite ... That altcoins are dying.

This may be true as well, though I don't like that you are generalizing all altcoins. There are so many altcoins, so of course most fail, a few do well, and it's the ones that are doing well that I feel are worth throwing some interest towards. Some altcoins have had successful launches that make Bitcoins growth look terribly slow (very different circumstances I know). The altcoins I try to pay attention to are those that are bucking the trend of bitcoins decline over the past few months. It's also worth considering that Bitcoins decline in value as of late also effects all altcoins to some extent.

[bitsmichel]

I agree Bitcoin works well, though I feel Bitcoins losing support to some of the more popular altcoins lately. Now why is that?

Bitcoin is actually gaining popularity among the industry and others, even bloomberg - banks and the government talk about them, have a look on bitprize.org crypto news for example.

Alt coins are interesting, but be careful, pump and dump schemes happen.  The market cap of them is nowhere near as bitcoin (6 billion usd economy) at the moments. My expectation is that some will rise, some will fall.

[jubalix]

I support pos/pow PeerCoin,

but am hesitant to suggest a fork, why, well we already have other models doing othey types of coins, why change btc, it would lose diversity.

make your own coin,

or as suggeted elsewhere, make a coin that credits all existing BTC addresses with the same percentages of your new coind and there you have the existing user base of BTC psuedo~forked

end of.

[budi]

I support pos/pow PeerCoin,

but am hesitant to suggest a fork, why, well we already have other models doing othey types of coins, why change btc, it would lose diversity.

make your own coin,

or as suggeted elsewhere, make a coin that credits all existing BTC addresses with the same percentages of your new coind and there you have the existing user base of BTC psuedo~forked

end of.

I came to this conclusion myself and tweeted about it yesterday . "Why change BTC" I thought I addressed in the op

https://twitter.com/NickBudi/status/461924383280594945

[ThePurplePlanet]

I support pos/pow PeerCoin,

but am hesitant to suggest a fork, why, well we already have other models doing othey types of coins, why change btc, it would lose diversity.

make your own coin,

or as suggeted elsewhere, make a coin that credits all existing BTC addresses with the same percentages of your new coind and there you have the existing user base of BTC psuedo~forked

end of.

I came to this conclusion myself and tweeted about it yesterday . "Why change BTC" I thought I addressed in the op

https://twitter.com/NickBudi/status/461924383280594945

I Think the easiest way to improve bitcoin would be to  implement it as a sidechain so that people can move easily without  any exchange rate speculation. If people find it more useful they will slowly move to the other chain. Thinks will get more interesting I guess with sidechains. We might actually see bitcoin as a POS if users.

[jubalix]

I do note though the mining tax, must act as a drag on BTC vs say a BTC with a POS system that was just as safe/secure same distribution.

Thus a POS would out compete a POW on those terms.

[teukon]

Why not just create an altcoin which adopts the new feature and have everyone move over to the altcoin when they are comfortable with moving.  This way, Bitcoin simply fades away, and we all enjoy a beautifully smooth and wholly voluntary transition.

I'd be very wary of rushing the process.

[MarketNeutral]

The phenomenon we're all observing is that the gulf, or chasm, between bitcoin and the altcoins is widening. Bitcoin is becoming more mainstream, more widely accepted for goods and services, more legitimate among non-computer professionals, and is rapidly obscuring its humble hacker origins, whereas altcoins are mostly stagnating, despite their interesting innovations and shocking abundance. Bitcoin is becoming a widely-accepted store of value and means of remittance, whereas altcoins are mostly vehicles for pump-and-dump speculation and get-rich-quick schemes.

Hard forks may be common in the altcoin 'community,' but for bitcoin or any currency/commodity with a substantial market cap and meaningful real-world use, such a proposal should only be reserved for the most serious force majeure-style events.

[Pizzaworld]

Lol Btc price is going down, POS idea is interesting however unless most miners ready to switch how can it happen?

[Bitcoin++]

PoW is very good for bitcoin. 3000 new coins are mined every day by miners who to a large extent need to sell these coins to recover costs. This increases the liquidity at market places which enables anyone to enter the bitcoin economy. This constant selling pressure also discourages speculative bubbles.

PoS supports those who all ready own coins and makes a widespread adoption less likely. Sure it has advantages such as making 51% attack more difficult and less power consumption, but all in all I see no reason to change the bitcoin protocol.

[muxxxamed]

The sense is that bitcoin was the first and its chain is the biggest. The most people don't even understands what is bitcoin and your idea is to make something that kills it. Only real  new technology   can make it/ Something more intresting than blockchain/ But good and new      ideas are really rare so bitcoin will be the most popular until somebody makes something more interesting...