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Bitcoin Is Having a Civil War as It Enters a Critical Month

371 points by discombobulate 9y ago

faragon 9y ago
TL;DR: Bitcoin is popping, and Ethereum is going to be the new bubble.
- discombobulate 9y ago
  Not really. It's explaining the dynamics around the possible hard. Who wants what & why they want it. It's the most concise overview I've seen.
  - faragon 9y ago
    Sure, it is not a bubble, but a new paradigm... Oh, wait.
    - discombobulate 9y ago
      Personally, I wouldn't call it a new paradigm. It's quite similar to what already exists. With one improvement (which comes with trade-offs).
      - faragon 9y ago
        It was irony: "new paradigm" is a well known euphemism for "bubble".
        discombobulate 9y ago
        Really? Your comment seemed so sincere! I'd say the use of 'paradigm' is more taken as overused bullshit in general. Frist used by business-types as a buzz word (or at least gaining popularity within that population).
- rjbwork 9y ago
  Ethereum already went bubble and popped. Maybe it'll go again though. I personally got out @2600 and am probably done with cryptos for a while. Was a good 3 year hold and appreciate though.
  - Leader2light 9y ago
    You mean you didn't hold for 1 million a coin. :)
  - DiNovi 9y ago
    Ethereum is up 17x in 4 months. So uh... popped aint the right word
    - rjbwork 9y ago
      Fair, but it's also down >2x in 1 month so...
  - nul_byte 9y ago
    Its starting to rise again now, I really would not be surprised if it peaks $500 over the next two weeks.
rihegher 9y ago
Already discussed a few days ago on HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14758587 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14758587
ihuman 9y ago
How is this different then what happened with Bitcoin XT and Bitcoin classic?
- mhluongo 9y ago
  Segwit2x has the hash power to end this. Also, with XT there wasn't really n alternative scaling solution to a blocksize increase, as far as I know. This time we have SegWit as an alternative and with the threat of UASF, the community is being forced to compromise on SegWit + a 2MB hardfork.
  - jhall1468 9y ago
    Hash power follows value not the other way around. For some reason a lot of people seem to think the entire economy follows the miners.
- sp821543 9y ago
  XT/Classic was a mere skirmish compared to this. On one side you have Chinese miners and one developer gunning for segwit2x because it gives them a significant advantage related to their hardware. On the other side you have the other dozen or so core developers who want a more conservative approach. As a side-effect this version levels the playing field for miners.
  - needs 9y ago
    I'm not sure what you are talking about. Because what I see from my point of view is a dozen of Blockstream employees pushing for segwit, with barely no support from the community nor the miners. And on the other side I see a growing majority of miners, a growing majority of the community asking for a simple block size increase, wich is a matter of 10 lines modified, compared to 5 000 lines and a great bunch of complexity that segwit bring. But I'm probably wasting my time with you, looking at your comment history you seems to be a typical pro-Blockstream troll.
    - JonAtkinson 9y ago
xiaoma 9y ago
Standard. This is what bitcoin leaders do.
kanzure 9y ago
Not really a "civil war"-- basically, bitcoin will keep working, even without the segwit upgrade if it gets delayed another year or two, and there might be some new altcoins that could be spun off from the current bitcoin, and there might be some brand confusion for a while as people wonder whether something incompatible with the bitcoin network is still bitcoin. Here is some background: http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoins-segwit2x-scaling-proposal-core-developers-react/ http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoins-segwit2x-scaling-proposal-c... https://medium.com/@jimmysong/segwit2x-what-you-need-to-know-b747e6326266 https://medium.com/@jimmysong/segwit2x-what-you-need-to-know... https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/major-exchanges-will-consider-bitcoin-unlimited-new-asset/ https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/major-exchanges-will-co... https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/countdown-segwit-these-are-dates-keep-eye/ https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/countdown-segwit-these-... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14758587 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14758587 https://www.reddit.com/r/sound8bits/comments/5xre70/the_origins_of_the_modern_blocksize_debate/ https://www.reddit.com/r/sound8bits/comments/5xre70/the_orig... https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6mz19j/potential_network_disruption/dk5pftg/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6mz19j/potential_n... https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6mgecw/frankensegwit8x_testnet_irrecoverably_forks_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6mgecw/frankensegw... https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/bitcoin-unlimited-miners-may-be-preparing-51-attack-bitcoin/ https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/bitcoin-unlimited-miner... or https://medium.com/@WhalePanda/verified-chatlogs-why-jihan-and-jiang-want-to-block-segwit-at-all-cost-bbf068c5ce0f https://medium.com/@WhalePanda/verified-chatlogs-why-jihan-a... how about some peer review yo, https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2017-July/014709.html https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2017... and https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2017-July/014710.html https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2017...
- wyager 9y ago
  To be specific, fully 88%(!) of miners are actively signaling support for the upgrade plan known as "segwit2x".[1] The contention was between whether Bitcoin should scale via block growth or via a different transaction serialization format that allowed for more transactions and also opens the door for certain forms of off-chain transaction. Segwit2x does both: it doubles the block size, and introduces the new transaction serialization format. This should result in an immediate transaction capacity increase of at least ~3x. On top of this, the new transaction serialization format allows for technologies such as the in-progress "lightning network", which allows for very very substantial transaction volume off-blockchain. (Think on the order of thousands of times higher volume at the very least. Probably on the order of millions is attainable.) [1] https://coin.dance/blocks https://coin.dance/blocks
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gremlinsinc 9y ago
If I wanted to grab an altcoin like Nxt/Ardor -- would it be safer to buy bitcoin now, or wait till Segwit when it could become cheaper? Nxt/Ardor and all crypto's are downward spiral now--because of the bitcoin split coming, so I feel now's a buyers paradise.. and Nxt/Ardor chains look very promising from a tech standpoint.
- luka-birsa 9y ago
  Do not buy anything right now. Too risky. When BC bleeds, the whole ecosystem goes down. Go on a holiday, enjoy the sun, do nothing.
  - drukenemo 9y ago
    Also wondering if it's time to sell mine. Already sold like 70%...
    - cableshaft 9y ago
      Personally I wouldn't sell now, especially if you can wait it out a year or two. The dust will settle eventually, and it'll be on the rise again, most likely, higher than it got a couple of months ago. But I don't know what's going to happen anymore than anyone else claims to.
      - luka-birsa 9y ago
        If you're convinced it's going to fall, then it's stupid to hold. You can sell and rebuy at lower price.
        deleted 9y ago
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        cableshaft 9y ago
        Well, I'm not convinced it's going to, or at least how much longer it will, or how low it's going to get before rebounding. It's damn hard to predict what's going to happen with a high confidence of accuracy. Personally I'd rather just hold instead of trying to catch falling knives. I'm just buying a little more while everything has dropped instead.
someSven 9y ago
I was a bit surprised by the crash, I would have sold and buyed back cheeper. But I thought the information was already in the price. I could imagine someone tried to make it crash hard by selling a lot and creating a panic, and failed.
pteredactyl 9y ago
Bitcoin continues to evolve. With that comes growing pains. And internal struggles as it is mostly an open source project. But for Bloomberg to use a 'civil war' hyperbole signals fear from the establishment. Established capital more specifically. And really, that is bitcoin's biggest threat. Disclosure: I own bitcoin.
- tertius 9y ago
  I think you're reading too much into it. It's clickbait.
  - ascendantlogic 9y ago
    No the factions in the world of BTC have been very contentious for a long time now. It may be hyperbole but not by much.
- Analemma_ 9y ago
  If you think "The Establishment" is scared of Bitcoin, I've got some bad news for you.
  - Dirlewanger 9y ago
    If they really didn't see anything in it (be it profit or wanting to get to market "first"), then there wouldn't be so many large firms investing in their own blockchain tech.
    - Daishiman 9y ago
      It's called hedging bets. That's how you become an established player.
      - jethro_tell 9y ago
        You hire 50k people and throw 5/10 at block chain just to make sure you don't get caught with your pants down. That's barely an investment.
apeace 9y ago
The days are counting down to the "Segwit2X" rollout, the idea supported in the "New York Agreement" (NYA)[0]. There is a contingency plan in place should the Core-supported User Activated Soft Fork become activated.[1] Segwit2X has working code, has been tested in beta, and is now in RC.[2] Without commenting on the merits of the different approaches, the current situation is thrilling to watch as a spectator. To call it a "Civil War" is not an exaggeration. [0] https://medium.com/@DCGco/bitcoin-scaling-agreement-at-consensus-2017-133521fe9a77 https://medium.com/@DCGco/bitcoin-scaling-agreement-at-conse... [1] https://blog.bitmain.com/en/uahf-contingency-plan-uasf-bip148/ https://blog.bitmain.com/en/uahf-contingency-plan-uasf-bip14... [2] https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-segwit2x/2017-July/000145.html https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-segwit2x...
- deleted 9y ago
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- jerguismi 9y ago
  > Without commenting on the merits of the different approaches, the current situation is thrilling to watch as a spectator. To call it a "Civil War" is not an exaggeration. I totally disagree. The whole discussion is totally overblown when you consider what is actually happening. I would bet 99% of services accepting bitcoin are running core, and the rest 1% maybe with minor patches which doesn't affect consensus code. That is very unlikely to change. Miners can run whatever they want and probably already are running custom code. However for the rest of the network matters if they mine core compatible blocks or not. Some miners can choose to mine 2MB blocks or whatever, but the rest of the network will ignore those, since they are not compatible with core.
- yoodenvranx 9y ago
  > the current situation is thrilling to watch as a spectator Is there a good "live-thread" where I can follow the events?
  - jerguismi 9y ago
    People follow block signaling a lot. Note however that miners cah signal whatever bit, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they actually run some specific software. For example "NYA" signal doesn't mean actually much, maybe intention to run segwit2x. The first software was released one day ago, the NYA signaling started way before that. http://coin.dance/blocks http://coin.dance/blocks
m777z 9y ago
With this much uncertainty, paying ~$2000 for 1 bitcoin seems insane to me. But that's why I don't invest in cryptocurrencies; too much volatility for my taste.
- jethro_tell 9y ago
  You can't invest in a Cryptocurrency. It's called gambling. edit: autocorrect.
  - linsomniac 9y ago
    Do you want to know the secret to making a small fortune in cryptocurrencies? Start with a large one.
    - jethro_tell 9y ago
      Wait, you missed the part where I have to buy your ebook.
  - StavrosK 9y ago
    What's the difference?
    - jethro_tell 9y ago
      The difference is that when I buy a stock, they have a balance sheet, usually physical and/or digital assets like buildings, datacenters, warehouses, trucks, intellectual property, software programs, patents. They usually also have people, and some type of plan to leverage everything so that the sum is greater then the parts. That's an investment, when you pay them to leverage their assets and people. Even in a situation like yahoo, because there are real assets, even though they didn't leverage on the dream, the were still parted and sold for scrap because there was real value behind the stock. That won't happen with BTC.
      - StavrosK 9y ago
buttershakes 9y ago
This is a fight for control of Bitcoin. It is business interests on both sides fighting for a position of authority. SegWit2x is an attempt to remove control from the core dev team, which while technically strong is full of zealots with questionable motives and terrible management skills. Bitcoin ABC and Unlimited have their own parts to play as factions. It's getting tense, but it's been years in the making. Groups unwilling to compromise on the most basic points. I suspect that SegWit2x will end up taking over the network, but I'd rather see a pure large block faction like Bitcoin ABC. Either way the core developers are going to lose control of a 40 billion dollar network, possibly one of the biggest fails in modern technology. They will be left on a minority chain which will have little relevance going forward. I've said it before but anyone who put money into Blockstream has to seriously be wondering what the hell they are doing, there CEO should have been kicked out a long time ago, he has no relevant experience to actually running an organization and has royally messed it up.
- jerguismi 9y ago
  "I suspect that SegWit2x will end up taking over the network" What? They had first release like yesterday, the project has released one tarball, no packaging, no very good marketing etc. The biggest marketers seem to be the tinfoil hat opponents who fear the fork so much that they speak about it everywhere. I don't think it is at all likely that segwit2x client will gain support. Or if it will gain support, it will take years at this point for it to gain any considerable support. The whole thins is totally exaggerated. People have nothing to talk about, so they will invent tinfoil hat scenarios and discuss those. Bitcoin protocol has staid fundamentally the same for many years and it is pretty likely that it will stay that way.
  - mhluongo 9y ago
    They have a huge amount of committed hashpower and the support of most major Bitcoin companies.
    - jerguismi 9y ago
      No major bitcoin company has stated that they will run segwit2x client. If you have conflicting information, please link announcement/blog post about that. As for the hashpower, it doesn't matter what clients miners run. You can't force the nodes to run specific client with hashpower.
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badloginagain 9y ago
Sorry if this is a stupid question, but why not both? It doesn't appear that the two strategies are mutually exclusive. Is it just that SegWitX2 is considered too rushed? Is it just that miners have a vested interest in maintaining influence? Personally it seems like smart contracts and other similar services beget an ecosystem that could swell the market cap by a significant amount, I assume miners would have a long term goal of doing just that. As a disclaimer, I own Bitcoin, but I'm definitely a layman and I don't really have a horse in the race. What I'm most concerned is what these changes are going to accomplish when looking back 10 years from now. I'm in BTC for the long-term, and this whole thing stinks of petty bias and tribal power plays.
- kanzure 9y ago
  > Is it just that SegWitX2 is considered too rushed? https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6h612o/can_someone_explain_to_me_why_core_wont_endorse/divtc93/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6h612o/can_someone... and https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6hkuze/greg_maxwell_a_hasty_snapshot_of_a_few_of_my_views/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6hkuze/greg_maxwel... and a long-term view i guess https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6h612o/can_someone_explain_to_me_why_core_wont_endorse/diyu6ys/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6h612o/can_someone... more broadly-- although with less explanation-- https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Segwit_support https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Segwit_support
- mhluongo 9y ago
  Sounds like you already know. The Core devs say that SegWit2x is too rushed (and I tend to agree), but it's also putting forward a new client that could become the default over Core (btc1), and a potential refresh of the dev team. This is less about the tech and more about the politics, at this point.
- statoshi 9y ago
  There are many reasons, but one is that few people in the technical community support a somewhat rushed hard fork that does nothing but increase the block size a bit. There are plenty of other things that would be great to clean up if a hard fork is to be deployed. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Hardfork_Wishlist https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Hardfork_Wishlist
narrator 9y ago
This is why I'm bullish on Litecoin. Already has segregated witness, lightning network, low transaction fees, and a low drama community.
- DiNovi 9y ago
  pretty sure LTC doesnt have lighting sidechain
  - mhluongo 9y ago
    @roasbeef posted about ltcd running on Litecoin with SegWit in May [0]. [0] - http://lightning.community/release/software/lnd/lightning/2017/05/03/litening/ http://lightning.community/release/software/lnd/lightning/20...
- kbaker 9y ago
  Bullish up to the point where Bitcoin inherits all the features... If the BTC scaling debate gets solved successfully, then LTC will fade back into the background...
arcaster 9y ago
After working in the space for about a year, after being a developer and enthusiast surrounding crypto since the early days of BTC this "bickering among core devs" is nothing new. Any press or "talks" that say otherwise are either being influenced with serious bias or are simply reporting false information. I like DLT tech, however, if bitcoin has shown us anything it's that once you solve the double-spend problem you're still left with an even more grotesque problem of governance. People pick fun at ETH since it has a "single leader", but Vitalik is more of a back-seat conductor than a "grand leader". Also, most arguments of "bitcoin being a truly decentralized platform because our devs are decentralized" can easily be diffused by vaguely looking into how BlockStream operates... The political shit-storm being paraded by BTC needs to end soon, we really don't need another 2-3 years of douchey BTC core devs arguing on the internet and bad-mouthing any project that isn't BTC.
- Obi_Juan_Kenobi 9y ago
  The governance issue is, to me, the 'final boss' of Bitcoin. They way it's set up, Bitcoin should ruthlessly follow the will of the majority and generate new consensus. I cannot think of another system that could potentially do this as effectively. It's ugly, bitter, and has real costs, but the way it's playing out gives me confidence that cryptocurrencies are truly a novel form of human communication about value.
  - criddell 9y ago
    > Bitcoin should ruthlessly follow the will of the majority and generate new consensus. This might be a dumb question, but the majority of what?
    - RealityVoid 9y ago
      As I understand it, the majority of the hashing power. The trick is that hashing power alone can not dictate the network, else the users disappear and all that hashing power becomes worthless. So we have cryptografically reproduced a problem of governance present since the dawn of time.
shp0ngle 9y ago
The basic question is how to scale; off-chain or on-chain. The rest is just theatrics and typical nerdy hyperbole. One side of the fight (Core / blockstream) wants to scale off-chain, pushing transactions to side-chains and/or lighting networks, and want to profit from off-chain solutions. The other side of the fight (segwit2x / miners) wants to scale on-chain, making the blocks bigger, and profit from block fees. Both sides have pros and cons. Pros of off-chain solutions - more scalable, don't need expensive confirmations for each transaction, more long-term. Cons: the solutions don't exist yet and might be vaporware; segwit etc are just stepping stones. Pros of on-chain solutions - making the blocks larger can be done now, no need to wait for new software and new networks. Cons - makes the blocks larger, which makes running bitcoin nodes harder. Also cannot scale this way infinitely (you need to keep all the transactions on a disk forever). The discussion about segwit is in reality just discussion about how to scale, and who profits. As for me, I don't really care, Bitcoin is inefficient either way
- kinghajj 9y ago
  > Also cannot scale this way infinitely (you need to keep all the transactions on a disk forever). The whitepaper itself mentions that the Merkle tree can be pruned so that doesn't need to be the case. Do you know why there hasn't been more effort towards implementing that yet?
  - erikpukinskis 9y ago
    The leaves still grow with the square root of the tree size, which is certainly better than linear, but doesn't really solve the problem. It buys you one less order of magnitude you have to scale to, but only one. If you're growing by an order of magnitude every few years, it's just buying you an extra few years lead time.
    - placeybordeaux 9y ago
      If we only wanted to track the current unspent outputs we're sitting at 54M which interestingly has been holding relatively constant since June. Where as the total number of transactions (size of blockchain in general) is at 240M and is strictly monotonically increasing. See UTXO here: https://blockchain.info/charts/utxo-count https://blockchain.info/charts/utxo-count See total TX here: https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions-total https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions-total Every block for the near future will include one new UTXO, but it can increase, decrease or keep the total number of UTXO the same.
rwmj 9y ago
If Bitcoin splits, what do you predict would be the effect on holders of bitcoins? - They have twice as much money (yay!) - They have twice as much money but the value is split, so it's worth approximately the same. - One of the branches wins or mostly wins. - The split does so much damage that some (all?) value of coins is lost.
- buckie 9y ago
  I think this is the problem or at least what permits what we're seeing. If coin holders had to choose a side for their coins to be found on I bet things would be rather different. However, this is in no one's financial interest. Right now, the risk isn't that high as the worst case (added uncertainty breaks bitcoin completely) is very unlikely. Instead, (a) one side wins you still have the same amount of coins or (b) both sides win and you probably have +2x the value long term.
- keyme 9y ago
  My guess is that a split of any initial ratio (even 50-50) will quickly converge to 90%+ of all users on one side. Quickly, as in minutes to hours. Also, by "users", I don't mean holders. I mean entities that actually transact bitcoin on a daily basis. Exchanges and merchants. They can't afford to lose any time (money) on waiting for their favorite chain to win. They have to use the longest chain (and they are the only ones that matter). Seeing that there is no way in hell the initial split will be anything worse than 75-25 (against Core), I predict that the price will quickly stabilize on the markets after the initial panic (which is already underway, IMHO). The value of "bitcoin" (the winning side) after the split (and recovery from panic) will have lost an amount equivalent to what "minority coin" is worth at the time (if anything).
  - Taek 9y ago
    Exchanges and merchants transact... with users. Also, you definitely don't have to use the longest chain. That's one of the key innovations if Bitcoin, you only follow the longest chain that your node sees as valid. At the moment of the split, most nodes will not see the 2x chain as valid, so they will not follow it even if it is the longest chain. But those nodes will keep working.
placeybordeaux 9y ago
I just moved ~20% of my crypto holdings from BTC to LTC. The rest I'll likely keep close to 40% of my cryptoholdings in BTC, but move it onto my own wallet. If a fork actually happens, I'd prefer to be in control of the private keys. It's kind of odd that there is still so much FUD about segwit, as it has already activated on LTC. It hasn't appeared to open any security holes.
- olegkikin 9y ago
  Your private keys should be fine, no matter how the fork happens. In every scenario discussed everyone keeps their old coins, as far as I'm aware.
- colordrops 9y ago
  The arguments about Segwit are not about security holes. Segwit would enable off-chain transactions using systems that are patented and centralized, allowing others to control things on top of the bitcoin network. LTC isn't used for purchases, so Segwit hasn't had much of an effect there.
  - int_19h 9y ago
    > Segwit would enable off-chain transactions using systems that are patented and centralized Why is that a problem, so long as it is enabled, not mandated?
    - colordrops 9y ago
      Didn't say it was a problem. I'm only saying that it being activated on LTC isn't an indicator of segwit's merits and faults.
- pmorici 9y ago
  Has there even been a single Segwit transaction on the LTC network? No problems have appeared because no one uses it. More generally very few people use LTC
JohnJamesRambo 9y ago
Can someone show some math on how much more expensive it would be to run a node if block size is allowed to increase from 1 MB? It sounds like a silly made-up excuse.
- taysic 9y ago
  It seems to me it is. From Gavin Andresen, one of the original developers: http://gavinandresen.ninja/does-more-transactions-necessarily-mean-more-centralized http://gavinandresen.ninja/does-more-transactions-necessaril... "So it looks to me like the actual out-of-pocket cost of running a full node in a datacenter won’t change with a 20 megabyte maximum block size; it will be on the order of $5 or $10 per month."
  - nas 9y ago
    Blockstream has raised something like $76m. If you look at their business model and which developers they support, it doesn't take a genius to connect the dots. They really want side-chains to become both possible and economically necessary.
  - JohnJamesRambo 9y ago
    That's nauseating. I have to hear all this vitriol over a silly difference like that? Why doesn't anyone just bring this up every time Blockstream talks? I feel like I'm in bizarro land.
    - Taek 9y ago
      Because it is nonsense. What Gavin did in that post was napkin math that completely ignored all of the complexities of secure blockchain design. It's like a guy showing that we can get humans to Mars eailsy just by greatly increasing the amount of fuel in the rocket. Any rocket scientist would have heart attack if such a notion became broadly popular, because it's so naive. A lot of this debate can be summarized by saying that the popular opinion is being propagated by non-experts spouting incorrect ideas that seem correct to the general population because they are accessible, because they ignore the hard (but important) parts of blockchain design.
bleair 9y ago
It appears the emotional power of "money" coincidences with zealotry. It must be exciting to have your money tied into something that could split. If the split does happen and both forks keep running won't the world economy of bitcoins simply doubled? I assume someone will provide an exchange to move to/from bitcoin-zeal vs. segwit2
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just_one_time_ 9y ago
Love that Bitcoin is no longer automatically downvoted on HN but still a lot of hate.
lamontcg 9y ago
From a technical analysis perspective (yeah i also do palm reading and seances), Bitcoin's chart looks like a perfect triangle continuation pattern.
BenoitP 9y ago
I'm starting to see a bit clearer on how a fork would pan out: Miners: Hashing power has little influence. As long as there are miners, and two chains rejecting each other transactions will be processed. At first, transactions processing might take a while, but difficulty will adapt. This will create two legitimate currencies. Now everybody in possession of 1 BTC would have 1 BTCa + 1 BTCb. Exchanges: Little power. They will trade both BTCa and BTCb, and accept commissions. Trader of goods, in embedded devices: They might have to modify their client to accept both currencies, but they would have to follow the market rates. Otherwise they would have to suffer income loss from people using them to profit from arbitrating the markets. BTC-rich individuals: They have now 1 BTCa + 1 BTCb. But there is transaction replayability. If they spend 1 BTCa, their BTCb can also get spend the same way. And they lose their BTCb. Chains have a strategic advantage to replay transactions getting to the other one because: 1) they get to keep the commission, 2) they ascertain themselves as more encompassing economically (not sure on this one maybe, they want to stay neutral). Now, if BTC-holders can wallet-emptying-double-spend them to 2 different addresses they control on the 2 chains. And, compared to the ones who got their transaction replayed, they have kept both their BTCa and BTCb. TL;DR: IMHO, come the technical fork, some BTC-holders will be tumbling until they irrevocably acquire their BTCa + BTCb, and use them to make runs on the markets, effectively materializing the economic fork. ---- I'd love the opinion of someone who lived through the ETH-ETC split, especially about the transaction replayability part.
- woah 9y ago
  They fixed the transaction replay ability I believe. I still have all my ETC, seems like it's not going anywhere.
  - BenoitP 9y ago
    How is that technically possible to prevent? The miners in the two chains gain from listening to what is going on in the other chain, and could just copy transactions and take the commission. Have no miner attempted to grab some fees? Or maybe the price of ETC is so low that it would be unprofitable? ---- Addendum: It is addressed in EIP #155 [1], where they changed the signing of transactions and put some sort of chain identity to be included in the transaction signatures. Which brings the question: Is there something changed in transaction signatures in the segwit2x hard fork? Is there already some chain identity in it? [1] https://github.com/ethereum/eips/issues/155 https://github.com/ethereum/eips/issues/155
xutopia 9y ago
To me this whole process shows how great cryptocurrencies really are. The process is live, it is public and it is messy. Compare with how our usual currencies are handled. Behind closed doors with powerful banks or private companies deciding for our governments.
- campbelltown 9y ago
  Exactly! Could you imagine if we could watch a live twitter fueled debate about how to upgrade our central banking system? It's a beautiful sight. Flawed, but beautiful.
  - kbaker 9y ago
    With an up-to-the-second, 24-hour market behind it where fortunes can be made or lost on single tweets. Fun!
    - aianus 9y ago
      Fiat isn't much different. Forex is 24h a day and jumps around on central banker quotes all the time.
- s73ver 9y ago
  At the same time, I'm glad this doesn't happen with the federal reserve, because I enjoy stable value in my day to day currency.
Animats 9y ago
The scary thing is that the developers want to go from initial release of new code to wide deployment in a few days. This on something where any security flaw can be attacked anonymously and profitably. What could possibly go wrong?
- pmorici 9y ago
  99% of the code has been in testing for a long time. Also the guy leading Segwit2x, Jeff Garzik, is a pro with a ton of opensource experience. You probably run his code on your Linux box and don't even realize it. He wrote rngd for example.
nfriedly 9y ago
What is Bitcoin and friends good for right now besides speculating with and trading for other currencies? A while back there was a BTC marketplace where among other things, I spent 1 BTC on a steam key for the game Portal (a poor trade in hindsight). But they shut down and the only other place that I can think of that accepts BTC is humblebundle.com - and presumably they convert it to USD right away. Actually: > Bitcoin payments have been disabled for the Humble Capcom Rising Bundle. So, yea, who accepts BTC right now?
- swampangel 9y ago
  Steam accepts bitcoin. Quite a few domain/web hosting/VPS companies accept it, like Namecheap and Namesilo. Online gambling sites accept it for obvious reasons. It's hardly ubiquitous, but for some things it's fairly practical.
  - wyldfire 9y ago
    Many vendors (including Amazon & Walmart) indirectly accept bitcoin via gift cards (Gyft, cardcash.com, etc).
- marme 9y ago
  it is great for money laundering which is why it is so popular in china. You can buy btc in cash no questions asked and it is untraceble and then sell it at a legit exchange in another country and claim it as legit income or just move it from country to country bypassing currency controls in places like china where no bank will allow you to send more than 50k USD per year out of the country
  - pmorici 9y ago
    "it is great for money laundering" People like to say this but it just isn't true. Nobody is laundering large amounts of money buy buying Bitcoin for cash and almost by definition you don't need to launder small amounts of money.
- colordrops 9y ago
deletia 9y ago
This just in: centralized authorities worried about the deflation of our fiat bubble and crypo currencies position as the next generation of digital commodities capitalize with FUD propaganda two weeks before a software patch (proposed last year) is rolled out exactly* in the way it is intended to.
hellbanner 9y ago
I see a lot of mention of 51% attack; the selfish miner attack could be done with closer to 33%(!): https://arxiv.org/pdf/1311.0243v4.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1311.0243v4.pdf https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/38273/have-bitcoin-developers-applied-the-solution-for-selfish-miner-attack https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/38273/have-bitco...
jgord 9y ago
I'm not sure why SegWit is put forward as a "scaling solution". It does make some room by moving signature data out of the main block, which may allow 2.5x as many transactions - but thats a one time improvement, afaict. The real problem is simply that the blocksize is way too small. At peak daily loads we are trying to put 20MB of transactions into a single 1MB block. Of course the unprocessed transactions pool up in the 'mempool' waiting for the next block, and are eventually cleared later in the day in off-peak times. The reason they don't just pool up indefinitely, and crash the server, is due to economics - people pay higher transaction fees to get their important transactions into the next block. Miners earn part of their income from those fees, so they put the best paying transactions into the block first. Most people who might like to use Bitcoin to pay for actual things, will balk at paying 3$ to send 500$, which means less people use the system, or they only use it for important big trades - thus, an equilibrium is set up where transaction volume is kept low. Keep in mind bitcoin blocks occur on average every 10 minutes. A global rate of 3 trans/sec is clearly not a large number for a system used by millions, all across the globe. Litecoin has the same architecture, but doesn't have this bottleneck problem - they have 3/4 the blocksize, process 4x as frequently and handle less that 1/10th the volume of transactions. So there is no mempool, fees are low etc. The max blocksize is set to 1MB in code [ think #define or static const ], so increasing it means releasing new software - old versions will not be able to process large blocks, so this means a "hard fork". I would argue that a blocksize increase is urgently needed and justifies a prudent hardfork - because it is currently preventing Bitcoin from growing. Not only do we need a 2MB block yesterday [ some say 8MB ], but we need a clear block size upgrade schedule for the next few years so Bitcoin can handle steady growth, without the need for many future hardforks. Blocksize increase over the next few years could yield a 20x to 200x increase in throughput using the current architecture ... this releases the stranglehold on transaction flow and user growth, and buys time to build out all the other nice new technologies that can augment, or scale beyond, the linear architecture of the blockchain. This issue has been delayed and debated for 2.5 years, so now it really is urgent and people on both sides are pretty angry. Sadly, its metastasized into an ugly political civil war .. but I think at heart it is a fairly normal engineering issue that could have been resolved routinely. Maybe having a ton of cash riding on your code makes easy choices hard.
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jancsika 9y ago
Can someone please ELI5 why ASICBOOST would be considered an exploit? Especially considering Satoshi clearly got caught off guard by the quick rise in GPU mining-- which led to the bootstrapping mechanism putting Bitcoin in fewer hands than it otherwise would have. But I never saw Satoshi call GPU mining an exploit.

TL;DR: Bitcoin is popping, and Ethereum is going to be the new bubble.

discombobulate 9y ago
Not really. It's explaining the dynamics around the possible hard. Who wants what & why they want it. It's the most concise overview I've seen.
- faragon 9y ago
  Sure, it is not a bubble, but a new paradigm... Oh, wait.
  - discombobulate 9y ago
    Personally, I wouldn't call it a new paradigm. It's quite similar to what already exists. With one improvement (which comes with trade-offs).
    - faragon 9y ago
      It was irony: "new paradigm" is a well known euphemism for "bubble".
      - discombobulate 9y ago
        Really? Your comment seemed so sincere! I'd say the use of 'paradigm' is more taken as overused bullshit in general. Frist used by business-types as a buzz word (or at least gaining popularity within that population).
rjbwork 9y ago
Ethereum already went bubble and popped. Maybe it'll go again though. I personally got out @2600 and am probably done with cryptos for a while. Was a good 3 year hold and appreciate though.
- Leader2light 9y ago
  You mean you didn't hold for 1 million a coin. :)
- DiNovi 9y ago
  Ethereum is up 17x in 4 months. So uh... popped aint the right word
  - rjbwork 9y ago
    Fair, but it's also down >2x in 1 month so...
- nul_byte 9y ago
  Its starting to rise again now, I really would not be surprised if it peaks $500 over the next two weeks.

Already discussed a few days ago on HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14758587 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14758587

ihuman 9y ago

How is this different then what happened with Bitcoin XT and Bitcoin classic?

mhluongo 9y ago
Segwit2x has the hash power to end this. Also, with XT there wasn't really n alternative scaling solution to a blocksize increase, as far as I know. This time we have SegWit as an alternative and with the threat of UASF, the community is being forced to compromise on SegWit + a 2MB hardfork.
- jhall1468 9y ago
  Hash power follows value not the other way around. For some reason a lot of people seem to think the entire economy follows the miners.
sp821543 9y ago
XT/Classic was a mere skirmish compared to this. On one side you have Chinese miners and one developer gunning for segwit2x because it gives them a significant advantage related to their hardware. On the other side you have the other dozen or so core developers who want a more conservative approach. As a side-effect this version levels the playing field for miners.
- needs 9y ago
  I'm not sure what you are talking about. Because what I see from my point of view is a dozen of Blockstream employees pushing for segwit, with barely no support from the community nor the miners. And on the other side I see a growing majority of miners, a growing majority of the community asking for a simple block size increase, wich is a matter of 10 lines modified, compared to 5 000 lines and a great bunch of complexity that segwit bring. But I'm probably wasting my time with you, looking at your comment history you seems to be a typical pro-Blockstream troll.
  - JonAtkinson 9y ago

xiaoma 9y ago

Standard. This is what bitcoin leaders do.

kanzure 9y ago

Not really a "civil war"-- basically, bitcoin will keep working, even without the segwit upgrade if it gets delayed another year or two, and there might be some new altcoins that could be spun off from the current bitcoin, and there might be some brand confusion for a while as people wonder whether something incompatible with the bitcoin network is still bitcoin. Here is some background: http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoins-segwit2x-scaling-proposal-core-developers-react/ http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoins-segwit2x-scaling-proposal-c... https://medium.com/@jimmysong/segwit2x-what-you-need-to-know-b747e6326266 https://medium.com/@jimmysong/segwit2x-what-you-need-to-know... https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/major-exchanges-will-consider-bitcoin-unlimited-new-asset/ https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/major-exchanges-will-co... https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/countdown-segwit-these-are-dates-keep-eye/ https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/countdown-segwit-these-... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14758587 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14758587 https://www.reddit.com/r/sound8bits/comments/5xre70/the_origins_of_the_modern_blocksize_debate/ https://www.reddit.com/r/sound8bits/comments/5xre70/the_orig... https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6mz19j/potential_network_disruption/dk5pftg/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6mz19j/potential_n... https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6mgecw/frankensegwit8x_testnet_irrecoverably_forks_a/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6mgecw/frankensegw... https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/bitcoin-unlimited-miners-may-be-preparing-51-attack-bitcoin/ https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/bitcoin-unlimited-miner... or https://medium.com/@WhalePanda/verified-chatlogs-why-jihan-and-jiang-want-to-block-segwit-at-all-cost-bbf068c5ce0f https://medium.com/@WhalePanda/verified-chatlogs-why-jihan-a... how about some peer review yo, https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2017-July/014709.html https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2017... and https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2017-July/014710.html https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2017...

wyager 9y ago
To be specific, fully 88%(!) of miners are actively signaling support for the upgrade plan known as "segwit2x".[1] The contention was between whether Bitcoin should scale via block growth or via a different transaction serialization format that allowed for more transactions and also opens the door for certain forms of off-chain transaction. Segwit2x does both: it doubles the block size, and introduces the new transaction serialization format. This should result in an immediate transaction capacity increase of at least ~3x. On top of this, the new transaction serialization format allows for technologies such as the in-progress "lightning network", which allows for very very substantial transaction volume off-blockchain. (Think on the order of thousands of times higher volume at the very least. Probably on the order of millions is attainable.) [1] https://coin.dance/blocks https://coin.dance/blocks

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gremlinsinc 9y ago

If I wanted to grab an altcoin like Nxt/Ardor -- would it be safer to buy bitcoin now, or wait till Segwit when it could become cheaper? Nxt/Ardor and all crypto's are downward spiral now--because of the bitcoin split coming, so I feel now's a buyers paradise.. and Nxt/Ardor chains look very promising from a tech standpoint.

luka-birsa 9y ago
Do not buy anything right now. Too risky. When BC bleeds, the whole ecosystem goes down. Go on a holiday, enjoy the sun, do nothing.
- drukenemo 9y ago
  Also wondering if it's time to sell mine. Already sold like 70%...
  - cableshaft 9y ago
    Personally I wouldn't sell now, especially if you can wait it out a year or two. The dust will settle eventually, and it'll be on the rise again, most likely, higher than it got a couple of months ago. But I don't know what's going to happen anymore than anyone else claims to.
    - luka-birsa 9y ago
      If you're convinced it's going to fall, then it's stupid to hold. You can sell and rebuy at lower price.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - cableshaft 9y ago
        Well, I'm not convinced it's going to, or at least how much longer it will, or how low it's going to get before rebounding. It's damn hard to predict what's going to happen with a high confidence of accuracy. Personally I'd rather just hold instead of trying to catch falling knives. I'm just buying a little more while everything has dropped instead.

someSven 9y ago

I was a bit surprised by the crash, I would have sold and buyed back cheeper. But I thought the information was already in the price. I could imagine someone tried to make it crash hard by selling a lot and creating a panic, and failed.

pteredactyl 9y ago

Bitcoin continues to evolve. With that comes growing pains. And internal struggles as it is mostly an open source project. But for Bloomberg to use a 'civil war' hyperbole signals fear from the establishment. Established capital more specifically. And really, that is bitcoin's biggest threat. Disclosure: I own bitcoin.

tertius 9y ago
I think you're reading too much into it. It's clickbait.
- ascendantlogic 9y ago
  No the factions in the world of BTC have been very contentious for a long time now. It may be hyperbole but not by much.
Analemma_ 9y ago
If you think "The Establishment" is scared of Bitcoin, I've got some bad news for you.
- Dirlewanger 9y ago
  If they really didn't see anything in it (be it profit or wanting to get to market "first"), then there wouldn't be so many large firms investing in their own blockchain tech.
  - Daishiman 9y ago
    It's called hedging bets. That's how you become an established player.
    - jethro_tell 9y ago
      You hire 50k people and throw 5/10 at block chain just to make sure you don't get caught with your pants down. That's barely an investment.

apeace 9y ago

The days are counting down to the "Segwit2X" rollout, the idea supported in the "New York Agreement" (NYA)[0]. There is a contingency plan in place should the Core-supported User Activated Soft Fork become activated.[1] Segwit2X has working code, has been tested in beta, and is now in RC.[2] Without commenting on the merits of the different approaches, the current situation is thrilling to watch as a spectator. To call it a "Civil War" is not an exaggeration. [0] https://medium.com/@DCGco/bitcoin-scaling-agreement-at-consensus-2017-133521fe9a77 https://medium.com/@DCGco/bitcoin-scaling-agreement-at-conse... [1] https://blog.bitmain.com/en/uahf-contingency-plan-uasf-bip148/ https://blog.bitmain.com/en/uahf-contingency-plan-uasf-bip14... [2] https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-segwit2x/2017-July/000145.html https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-segwit2x...

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jerguismi 9y ago
> Without commenting on the merits of the different approaches, the current situation is thrilling to watch as a spectator. To call it a "Civil War" is not an exaggeration. I totally disagree. The whole discussion is totally overblown when you consider what is actually happening. I would bet 99% of services accepting bitcoin are running core, and the rest 1% maybe with minor patches which doesn't affect consensus code. That is very unlikely to change. Miners can run whatever they want and probably already are running custom code. However for the rest of the network matters if they mine core compatible blocks or not. Some miners can choose to mine 2MB blocks or whatever, but the rest of the network will ignore those, since they are not compatible with core.
yoodenvranx 9y ago
> the current situation is thrilling to watch as a spectator Is there a good "live-thread" where I can follow the events?
- jerguismi 9y ago
  People follow block signaling a lot. Note however that miners cah signal whatever bit, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they actually run some specific software. For example "NYA" signal doesn't mean actually much, maybe intention to run segwit2x. The first software was released one day ago, the NYA signaling started way before that. http://coin.dance/blocks http://coin.dance/blocks

m777z 9y ago

With this much uncertainty, paying ~$2000 for 1 bitcoin seems insane to me. But that's why I don't invest in cryptocurrencies; too much volatility for my taste.

jethro_tell 9y ago
You can't invest in a Cryptocurrency. It's called gambling. edit: autocorrect.
- linsomniac 9y ago
  Do you want to know the secret to making a small fortune in cryptocurrencies? Start with a large one.
  - jethro_tell 9y ago
    Wait, you missed the part where I have to buy your ebook.
- StavrosK 9y ago
  What's the difference?
  - jethro_tell 9y ago
    The difference is that when I buy a stock, they have a balance sheet, usually physical and/or digital assets like buildings, datacenters, warehouses, trucks, intellectual property, software programs, patents. They usually also have people, and some type of plan to leverage everything so that the sum is greater then the parts. That's an investment, when you pay them to leverage their assets and people. Even in a situation like yahoo, because there are real assets, even though they didn't leverage on the dream, the were still parted and sold for scrap because there was real value behind the stock. That won't happen with BTC.
    - StavrosK 9y ago

buttershakes 9y ago

This is a fight for control of Bitcoin. It is business interests on both sides fighting for a position of authority. SegWit2x is an attempt to remove control from the core dev team, which while technically strong is full of zealots with questionable motives and terrible management skills. Bitcoin ABC and Unlimited have their own parts to play as factions. It's getting tense, but it's been years in the making. Groups unwilling to compromise on the most basic points. I suspect that SegWit2x will end up taking over the network, but I'd rather see a pure large block faction like Bitcoin ABC. Either way the core developers are going to lose control of a 40 billion dollar network, possibly one of the biggest fails in modern technology. They will be left on a minority chain which will have little relevance going forward. I've said it before but anyone who put money into Blockstream has to seriously be wondering what the hell they are doing, there CEO should have been kicked out a long time ago, he has no relevant experience to actually running an organization and has royally messed it up.

jerguismi 9y ago
"I suspect that SegWit2x will end up taking over the network" What? They had first release like yesterday, the project has released one tarball, no packaging, no very good marketing etc. The biggest marketers seem to be the tinfoil hat opponents who fear the fork so much that they speak about it everywhere. I don't think it is at all likely that segwit2x client will gain support. Or if it will gain support, it will take years at this point for it to gain any considerable support. The whole thins is totally exaggerated. People have nothing to talk about, so they will invent tinfoil hat scenarios and discuss those. Bitcoin protocol has staid fundamentally the same for many years and it is pretty likely that it will stay that way.
- mhluongo 9y ago
  They have a huge amount of committed hashpower and the support of most major Bitcoin companies.
  - jerguismi 9y ago
    No major bitcoin company has stated that they will run segwit2x client. If you have conflicting information, please link announcement/blog post about that. As for the hashpower, it doesn't matter what clients miners run. You can't force the nodes to run specific client with hashpower.

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badloginagain 9y ago

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but why not both? It doesn't appear that the two strategies are mutually exclusive. Is it just that SegWitX2 is considered too rushed? Is it just that miners have a vested interest in maintaining influence? Personally it seems like smart contracts and other similar services beget an ecosystem that could swell the market cap by a significant amount, I assume miners would have a long term goal of doing just that. As a disclaimer, I own Bitcoin, but I'm definitely a layman and I don't really have a horse in the race. What I'm most concerned is what these changes are going to accomplish when looking back 10 years from now. I'm in BTC for the long-term, and this whole thing stinks of petty bias and tribal power plays.

kanzure 9y ago
> Is it just that SegWitX2 is considered too rushed? https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6h612o/can_someone_explain_to_me_why_core_wont_endorse/divtc93/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6h612o/can_someone... and https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6hkuze/greg_maxwell_a_hasty_snapshot_of_a_few_of_my_views/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6hkuze/greg_maxwel... and a long-term view i guess https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6h612o/can_someone_explain_to_me_why_core_wont_endorse/diyu6ys/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6h612o/can_someone... more broadly-- although with less explanation-- https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Segwit_support https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Segwit_support
mhluongo 9y ago
Sounds like you already know. The Core devs say that SegWit2x is too rushed (and I tend to agree), but it's also putting forward a new client that could become the default over Core (btc1), and a potential refresh of the dev team. This is less about the tech and more about the politics, at this point.
statoshi 9y ago
There are many reasons, but one is that few people in the technical community support a somewhat rushed hard fork that does nothing but increase the block size a bit. There are plenty of other things that would be great to clean up if a hard fork is to be deployed. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Hardfork_Wishlist https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Hardfork_Wishlist

narrator 9y ago

This is why I'm bullish on Litecoin. Already has segregated witness, lightning network, low transaction fees, and a low drama community.

DiNovi 9y ago
pretty sure LTC doesnt have lighting sidechain
- mhluongo 9y ago
  @roasbeef posted about ltcd running on Litecoin with SegWit in May [0]. [0] - http://lightning.community/release/software/lnd/lightning/2017/05/03/litening/ http://lightning.community/release/software/lnd/lightning/20...
kbaker 9y ago
Bullish up to the point where Bitcoin inherits all the features... If the BTC scaling debate gets solved successfully, then LTC will fade back into the background...

arcaster 9y ago

After working in the space for about a year, after being a developer and enthusiast surrounding crypto since the early days of BTC this "bickering among core devs" is nothing new. Any press or "talks" that say otherwise are either being influenced with serious bias or are simply reporting false information. I like DLT tech, however, if bitcoin has shown us anything it's that once you solve the double-spend problem you're still left with an even more grotesque problem of governance. People pick fun at ETH since it has a "single leader", but Vitalik is more of a back-seat conductor than a "grand leader". Also, most arguments of "bitcoin being a truly decentralized platform because our devs are decentralized" can easily be diffused by vaguely looking into how BlockStream operates... The political shit-storm being paraded by BTC needs to end soon, we really don't need another 2-3 years of douchey BTC core devs arguing on the internet and bad-mouthing any project that isn't BTC.

Obi_Juan_Kenobi 9y ago
The governance issue is, to me, the 'final boss' of Bitcoin. They way it's set up, Bitcoin should ruthlessly follow the will of the majority and generate new consensus. I cannot think of another system that could potentially do this as effectively. It's ugly, bitter, and has real costs, but the way it's playing out gives me confidence that cryptocurrencies are truly a novel form of human communication about value.
- criddell 9y ago
  > Bitcoin should ruthlessly follow the will of the majority and generate new consensus. This might be a dumb question, but the majority of what?
  - RealityVoid 9y ago
    As I understand it, the majority of the hashing power. The trick is that hashing power alone can not dictate the network, else the users disappear and all that hashing power becomes worthless. So we have cryptografically reproduced a problem of governance present since the dawn of time.

shp0ngle 9y ago

The basic question is how to scale; off-chain or on-chain. The rest is just theatrics and typical nerdy hyperbole. One side of the fight (Core / blockstream) wants to scale off-chain, pushing transactions to side-chains and/or lighting networks, and want to profit from off-chain solutions. The other side of the fight (segwit2x / miners) wants to scale on-chain, making the blocks bigger, and profit from block fees. Both sides have pros and cons. Pros of off-chain solutions - more scalable, don't need expensive confirmations for each transaction, more long-term. Cons: the solutions don't exist yet and might be vaporware; segwit etc are just stepping stones. Pros of on-chain solutions - making the blocks larger can be done now, no need to wait for new software and new networks. Cons - makes the blocks larger, which makes running bitcoin nodes harder. Also cannot scale this way infinitely (you need to keep all the transactions on a disk forever). The discussion about segwit is in reality just discussion about how to scale, and who profits. As for me, I don't really care, Bitcoin is inefficient either way

kinghajj 9y ago
> Also cannot scale this way infinitely (you need to keep all the transactions on a disk forever). The whitepaper itself mentions that the Merkle tree can be pruned so that doesn't need to be the case. Do you know why there hasn't been more effort towards implementing that yet?
- erikpukinskis 9y ago
  The leaves still grow with the square root of the tree size, which is certainly better than linear, but doesn't really solve the problem. It buys you one less order of magnitude you have to scale to, but only one. If you're growing by an order of magnitude every few years, it's just buying you an extra few years lead time.
  - placeybordeaux 9y ago
    If we only wanted to track the current unspent outputs we're sitting at 54M which interestingly has been holding relatively constant since June. Where as the total number of transactions (size of blockchain in general) is at 240M and is strictly monotonically increasing. See UTXO here: https://blockchain.info/charts/utxo-count https://blockchain.info/charts/utxo-count See total TX here: https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions-total https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions-total Every block for the near future will include one new UTXO, but it can increase, decrease or keep the total number of UTXO the same.

rwmj 9y ago

If Bitcoin splits, what do you predict would be the effect on holders of bitcoins? - They have twice as much money (yay!) - They have twice as much money but the value is split, so it's worth approximately the same. - One of the branches wins or mostly wins. - The split does so much damage that some (all?) value of coins is lost.

buckie 9y ago
I think this is the problem or at least what permits what we're seeing. If coin holders had to choose a side for their coins to be found on I bet things would be rather different. However, this is in no one's financial interest. Right now, the risk isn't that high as the worst case (added uncertainty breaks bitcoin completely) is very unlikely. Instead, (a) one side wins you still have the same amount of coins or (b) both sides win and you probably have +2x the value long term.
keyme 9y ago
My guess is that a split of any initial ratio (even 50-50) will quickly converge to 90%+ of all users on one side. Quickly, as in minutes to hours. Also, by "users", I don't mean holders. I mean entities that actually transact bitcoin on a daily basis. Exchanges and merchants. They can't afford to lose any time (money) on waiting for their favorite chain to win. They have to use the longest chain (and they are the only ones that matter). Seeing that there is no way in hell the initial split will be anything worse than 75-25 (against Core), I predict that the price will quickly stabilize on the markets after the initial panic (which is already underway, IMHO). The value of "bitcoin" (the winning side) after the split (and recovery from panic) will have lost an amount equivalent to what "minority coin" is worth at the time (if anything).
- Taek 9y ago
  Exchanges and merchants transact... with users. Also, you definitely don't have to use the longest chain. That's one of the key innovations if Bitcoin, you only follow the longest chain that your node sees as valid. At the moment of the split, most nodes will not see the 2x chain as valid, so they will not follow it even if it is the longest chain. But those nodes will keep working.

placeybordeaux 9y ago

I just moved ~20% of my crypto holdings from BTC to LTC. The rest I'll likely keep close to 40% of my cryptoholdings in BTC, but move it onto my own wallet. If a fork actually happens, I'd prefer to be in control of the private keys. It's kind of odd that there is still so much FUD about segwit, as it has already activated on LTC. It hasn't appeared to open any security holes.

olegkikin 9y ago
Your private keys should be fine, no matter how the fork happens. In every scenario discussed everyone keeps their old coins, as far as I'm aware.
colordrops 9y ago
The arguments about Segwit are not about security holes. Segwit would enable off-chain transactions using systems that are patented and centralized, allowing others to control things on top of the bitcoin network. LTC isn't used for purchases, so Segwit hasn't had much of an effect there.
- int_19h 9y ago
  > Segwit would enable off-chain transactions using systems that are patented and centralized Why is that a problem, so long as it is enabled, not mandated?
  - colordrops 9y ago
    Didn't say it was a problem. I'm only saying that it being activated on LTC isn't an indicator of segwit's merits and faults.
pmorici 9y ago
Has there even been a single Segwit transaction on the LTC network? No problems have appeared because no one uses it. More generally very few people use LTC

JohnJamesRambo 9y ago

Can someone show some math on how much more expensive it would be to run a node if block size is allowed to increase from 1 MB? It sounds like a silly made-up excuse.

taysic 9y ago
It seems to me it is. From Gavin Andresen, one of the original developers: http://gavinandresen.ninja/does-more-transactions-necessarily-mean-more-centralized http://gavinandresen.ninja/does-more-transactions-necessaril... "So it looks to me like the actual out-of-pocket cost of running a full node in a datacenter won’t change with a 20 megabyte maximum block size; it will be on the order of $5 or $10 per month."
- nas 9y ago
  Blockstream has raised something like $76m. If you look at their business model and which developers they support, it doesn't take a genius to connect the dots. They really want side-chains to become both possible and economically necessary.
- JohnJamesRambo 9y ago
  That's nauseating. I have to hear all this vitriol over a silly difference like that? Why doesn't anyone just bring this up every time Blockstream talks? I feel like I'm in bizarro land.
  - Taek 9y ago
    Because it is nonsense. What Gavin did in that post was napkin math that completely ignored all of the complexities of secure blockchain design. It's like a guy showing that we can get humans to Mars eailsy just by greatly increasing the amount of fuel in the rocket. Any rocket scientist would have heart attack if such a notion became broadly popular, because it's so naive. A lot of this debate can be summarized by saying that the popular opinion is being propagated by non-experts spouting incorrect ideas that seem correct to the general population because they are accessible, because they ignore the hard (but important) parts of blockchain design.

bleair 9y ago

It appears the emotional power of "money" coincidences with zealotry. It must be exciting to have your money tied into something that could split. If the split does happen and both forks keep running won't the world economy of bitcoins simply doubled? I assume someone will provide an exchange to move to/from bitcoin-zeal vs. segwit2

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just_one_time_ 9y ago

Love that Bitcoin is no longer automatically downvoted on HN but still a lot of hate.

lamontcg 9y ago

From a technical analysis perspective (yeah i also do palm reading and seances), Bitcoin's chart looks like a perfect triangle continuation pattern.

BenoitP 9y ago

I'm starting to see a bit clearer on how a fork would pan out: Miners: Hashing power has little influence. As long as there are miners, and two chains rejecting each other transactions will be processed. At first, transactions processing might take a while, but difficulty will adapt. This will create two legitimate currencies. Now everybody in possession of 1 BTC would have 1 BTCa + 1 BTCb. Exchanges: Little power. They will trade both BTCa and BTCb, and accept commissions. Trader of goods, in embedded devices: They might have to modify their client to accept both currencies, but they would have to follow the market rates. Otherwise they would have to suffer income loss from people using them to profit from arbitrating the markets. BTC-rich individuals: They have now 1 BTCa + 1 BTCb. But there is transaction replayability. If they spend 1 BTCa, their BTCb can also get spend the same way. And they lose their BTCb. Chains have a strategic advantage to replay transactions getting to the other one because: 1) they get to keep the commission, 2) they ascertain themselves as more encompassing economically (not sure on this one maybe, they want to stay neutral). Now, if BTC-holders can wallet-emptying-double-spend them to 2 different addresses they control on the 2 chains. And, compared to the ones who got their transaction replayed, they have kept both their BTCa and BTCb. TL;DR: IMHO, come the technical fork, some BTC-holders will be tumbling until they irrevocably acquire their BTCa + BTCb, and use them to make runs on the markets, effectively materializing the economic fork. ---- I'd love the opinion of someone who lived through the ETH-ETC split, especially about the transaction replayability part.

woah 9y ago
They fixed the transaction replay ability I believe. I still have all my ETC, seems like it's not going anywhere.
- BenoitP 9y ago
  How is that technically possible to prevent? The miners in the two chains gain from listening to what is going on in the other chain, and could just copy transactions and take the commission. Have no miner attempted to grab some fees? Or maybe the price of ETC is so low that it would be unprofitable? ---- Addendum: It is addressed in EIP #155 [1], where they changed the signing of transactions and put some sort of chain identity to be included in the transaction signatures. Which brings the question: Is there something changed in transaction signatures in the segwit2x hard fork? Is there already some chain identity in it? [1] https://github.com/ethereum/eips/issues/155 https://github.com/ethereum/eips/issues/155

xutopia 9y ago

To me this whole process shows how great cryptocurrencies really are. The process is live, it is public and it is messy. Compare with how our usual currencies are handled. Behind closed doors with powerful banks or private companies deciding for our governments.

campbelltown 9y ago
Exactly! Could you imagine if we could watch a live twitter fueled debate about how to upgrade our central banking system? It's a beautiful sight. Flawed, but beautiful.
- kbaker 9y ago
  With an up-to-the-second, 24-hour market behind it where fortunes can be made or lost on single tweets. Fun!
  - aianus 9y ago
    Fiat isn't much different. Forex is 24h a day and jumps around on central banker quotes all the time.
s73ver 9y ago
At the same time, I'm glad this doesn't happen with the federal reserve, because I enjoy stable value in my day to day currency.

Animats 9y ago

The scary thing is that the developers want to go from initial release of new code to wide deployment in a few days. This on something where any security flaw can be attacked anonymously and profitably. What could possibly go wrong?

pmorici 9y ago
99% of the code has been in testing for a long time. Also the guy leading Segwit2x, Jeff Garzik, is a pro with a ton of opensource experience. You probably run his code on your Linux box and don't even realize it. He wrote rngd for example.

nfriedly 9y ago

What is Bitcoin and friends good for right now besides speculating with and trading for other currencies? A while back there was a BTC marketplace where among other things, I spent 1 BTC on a steam key for the game Portal (a poor trade in hindsight). But they shut down and the only other place that I can think of that accepts BTC is humblebundle.com - and presumably they convert it to USD right away. Actually: > Bitcoin payments have been disabled for the Humble Capcom Rising Bundle. So, yea, who accepts BTC right now?

swampangel 9y ago
Steam accepts bitcoin. Quite a few domain/web hosting/VPS companies accept it, like Namecheap and Namesilo. Online gambling sites accept it for obvious reasons. It's hardly ubiquitous, but for some things it's fairly practical.
- wyldfire 9y ago
  Many vendors (including Amazon & Walmart) indirectly accept bitcoin via gift cards (Gyft, cardcash.com, etc).
marme 9y ago
it is great for money laundering which is why it is so popular in china. You can buy btc in cash no questions asked and it is untraceble and then sell it at a legit exchange in another country and claim it as legit income or just move it from country to country bypassing currency controls in places like china where no bank will allow you to send more than 50k USD per year out of the country
- pmorici 9y ago
  "it is great for money laundering" People like to say this but it just isn't true. Nobody is laundering large amounts of money buy buying Bitcoin for cash and almost by definition you don't need to launder small amounts of money.
colordrops 9y ago

deletia 9y ago

This just in: centralized authorities worried about the deflation of our fiat bubble and crypo currencies position as the next generation of digital commodities capitalize with FUD propaganda two weeks before a software patch (proposed last year) is rolled out exactly* in the way it is intended to.

hellbanner 9y ago

I see a lot of mention of 51% attack; the selfish miner attack could be done with closer to 33%(!): https://arxiv.org/pdf/1311.0243v4.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1311.0243v4.pdf https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/38273/have-bitcoin-developers-applied-the-solution-for-selfish-miner-attack https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/38273/have-bitco...

jgord 9y ago

I'm not sure why SegWit is put forward as a "scaling solution". It does make some room by moving signature data out of the main block, which may allow 2.5x as many transactions - but thats a one time improvement, afaict. The real problem is simply that the blocksize is way too small. At peak daily loads we are trying to put 20MB of transactions into a single 1MB block. Of course the unprocessed transactions pool up in the 'mempool' waiting for the next block, and are eventually cleared later in the day in off-peak times. The reason they don't just pool up indefinitely, and crash the server, is due to economics - people pay higher transaction fees to get their important transactions into the next block. Miners earn part of their income from those fees, so they put the best paying transactions into the block first. Most people who might like to use Bitcoin to pay for actual things, will balk at paying 3$ to send 500$, which means less people use the system, or they only use it for important big trades - thus, an equilibrium is set up where transaction volume is kept low. Keep in mind bitcoin blocks occur on average every 10 minutes. A global rate of 3 trans/sec is clearly not a large number for a system used by millions, all across the globe. Litecoin has the same architecture, but doesn't have this bottleneck problem - they have 3/4 the blocksize, process 4x as frequently and handle less that 1/10th the volume of transactions. So there is no mempool, fees are low etc. The max blocksize is set to 1MB in code [ think #define or static const ], so increasing it means releasing new software - old versions will not be able to process large blocks, so this means a "hard fork". I would argue that a blocksize increase is urgently needed and justifies a prudent hardfork - because it is currently preventing Bitcoin from growing. Not only do we need a 2MB block yesterday [ some say 8MB ], but we need a clear block size upgrade schedule for the next few years so Bitcoin can handle steady growth, without the need for many future hardforks. Blocksize increase over the next few years could yield a 20x to 200x increase in throughput using the current architecture ... this releases the stranglehold on transaction flow and user growth, and buys time to build out all the other nice new technologies that can augment, or scale beyond, the linear architecture of the blockchain. This issue has been delayed and debated for 2.5 years, so now it really is urgent and people on both sides are pretty angry. Sadly, its metastasized into an ugly political civil war .. but I think at heart it is a fairly normal engineering issue that could have been resolved routinely. Maybe having a ton of cash riding on your code makes easy choices hard.

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jancsika 9y ago

Can someone please ELI5 why ASICBOOST would be considered an exploit? Especially considering Satoshi clearly got caught off guard by the quick rise in GPU mining-- which led to the bootstrapping mechanism putting Bitcoin in fewer hands than it otherwise would have. But I never saw Satoshi call GPU mining an exploit.