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If every company and mining pool decides to do something, isn't that the end of it? How can the devs prevent something? Maybe their official client might not re

If every company and mining pool decides to do something, isn't that the end of it? How can the devs prevent something? Maybe their official client might not recognize the changes and cause a fork but if it's true that even most mining pools and some major companies are moving, then why would anyone use the core fork?

stale2002 10y ago
The problem is that they might be able to get 5-10% of the mining power, or do something crazy like change the proof of work algorithm (They HAVE threatened to do this!). And if they do that, then there is a chance that there will be two competing forks, instead of one, and each competing fork will dump their coins on the other fork, and basically cause the whole thing to crash. Core can't "win" by doing this, but they can certainly make the rest of us lose. This threat, along with their constant insistence that improvements are Just Around The Corner, has allowed them to delay efforts to coordinate and make the changes that the community wants. Eventually people will wizen up to the fact that their improvements are never coming, but until then, they are playing the delaying game to buy themselves as much time as possible until they are able to get their competing, lighting network out of the door.
- sanswork 10y ago
  Why do you think 5-10% of the mining power matter? Why would changing the proof of work algorithm on their branch matter if everyone is using the other branch? All that would do is force the 5-10% of miners above to switch to the other branch to stop their equipment from becoming worthless. If there is one fork with 5-10% of the hashing power why do you think anyone would care about it? What do you mean by dump their coins on the other fork? You mean like try to sell them on an exchange? But the majority of users would be on the new fork right so they would have the majority of coins so why does it matter if the core developers dump their coins? Do you believe it to really be so fragile that a dozen users could crash the whole thing just by selling their coins? Have you considered that the real reason there hasn't been a change is that because the people that want it aren't actually in the majority?
  - stale2002 10y ago
    "Have you considered that the real reason there hasn't been a change is that because the people that want it aren't actually in the majority?" Are you actually for real? This is the current mining pool distribution: https://www.blocktrail.com/BTC/pools https://www.blocktrail.com/BTC/pools Antpool, which represents 17% is in favor of 2MB, and has threatened to NOT include any Core changes until it happens. Proof: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4l564f/bitcoin_core_nonirc_meeting_summary_for_20160520/d3kr1rj https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4l564f/bitcoin_cor... f2Pool, which is 23%, supports 2mb. Proof: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=700411.msg13571787#msg13571787 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=700411.msg13571787#m... BTCC, which is 13%, supports 2MB Proof: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/40az4o/bobby_lee_btcc_i_recommend_a_2mb_blocksize/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/40az4o/bobby_lee_b... BW, which is 12%, supports 8MB! Huobi, (HaoBTC), is 7%, and also supports 8MB. Proof for both: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3a5qj5/draft_signed_by_f2pool_antpool_bw_btcchina_huobi/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3a5qj5/draft_signe... KNCMiner, which is 2%, supports bitcoin classic (2MB hardfork) Half of slush pool (5% total, so 2.5%) supports classic. The only major miner that hasn't explicitly supported some sort of block size increase, is I believe Bitfury, which is ~10%. Now, please add up all of these numbers, and see if it adds up to a majority.
    - sanswork 10y ago
      What I see is a whole bunch of miners who say they'd like a change but won't make the very small effort to actually make one. My other points that you skipped over all still stand. If the majority truely wanted change they could do it painlessly. But they don't so the minority that does has to find something to blame besides lack of support so you come up with a ridiculous dream in which a handful of developers are holding everything up.

stale2002 10y ago

The problem is that they might be able to get 5-10% of the mining power, or do something crazy like change the proof of work algorithm (They HAVE threatened to do this!). And if they do that, then there is a chance that there will be two competing forks, instead of one, and each competing fork will dump their coins on the other fork, and basically cause the whole thing to crash. Core can't "win" by doing this, but they can certainly make the rest of us lose. This threat, along with their constant insistence that improvements are Just Around The Corner, has allowed them to delay efforts to coordinate and make the changes that the community wants. Eventually people will wizen up to the fact that their improvements are never coming, but until then, they are playing the delaying game to buy themselves as much time as possible until they are able to get their competing, lighting network out of the door.

sanswork 10y ago
Why do you think 5-10% of the mining power matter? Why would changing the proof of work algorithm on their branch matter if everyone is using the other branch? All that would do is force the 5-10% of miners above to switch to the other branch to stop their equipment from becoming worthless. If there is one fork with 5-10% of the hashing power why do you think anyone would care about it? What do you mean by dump their coins on the other fork? You mean like try to sell them on an exchange? But the majority of users would be on the new fork right so they would have the majority of coins so why does it matter if the core developers dump their coins? Do you believe it to really be so fragile that a dozen users could crash the whole thing just by selling their coins? Have you considered that the real reason there hasn't been a change is that because the people that want it aren't actually in the majority?
- stale2002 10y ago
  "Have you considered that the real reason there hasn't been a change is that because the people that want it aren't actually in the majority?" Are you actually for real? This is the current mining pool distribution: https://www.blocktrail.com/BTC/pools https://www.blocktrail.com/BTC/pools Antpool, which represents 17% is in favor of 2MB, and has threatened to NOT include any Core changes until it happens. Proof: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4l564f/bitcoin_core_nonirc_meeting_summary_for_20160520/d3kr1rj https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/4l564f/bitcoin_cor... f2Pool, which is 23%, supports 2mb. Proof: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=700411.msg13571787#msg13571787 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=700411.msg13571787#m... BTCC, which is 13%, supports 2MB Proof: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/40az4o/bobby_lee_btcc_i_recommend_a_2mb_blocksize/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/40az4o/bobby_lee_b... BW, which is 12%, supports 8MB! Huobi, (HaoBTC), is 7%, and also supports 8MB. Proof for both: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3a5qj5/draft_signed_by_f2pool_antpool_bw_btcchina_huobi/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3a5qj5/draft_signe... KNCMiner, which is 2%, supports bitcoin classic (2MB hardfork) Half of slush pool (5% total, so 2.5%) supports classic. The only major miner that hasn't explicitly supported some sort of block size increase, is I believe Bitfury, which is ~10%. Now, please add up all of these numbers, and see if it adds up to a majority.
  - sanswork 10y ago
    What I see is a whole bunch of miners who say they'd like a change but won't make the very small effort to actually make one. My other points that you skipped over all still stand. If the majority truely wanted change they could do it painlessly. But they don't so the minority that does has to find something to blame besides lack of support so you come up with a ridiculous dream in which a handful of developers are holding everything up.