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So if a huge number of nodes are Segwit2x capable, and the miners are mining Segwit2x blocks with the majority of the hash power, companies are going to stay on

So if a huge number of nodes are Segwit2x capable, and the miners are mining Segwit2x blocks with the majority of the hash power, companies are going to stay on a less secure chain that can be attacked by the majority so that they can have a smaller block size and keep the core dev team because they love them? This isn't how that works. Proof-of-work will force those companies onto the dominant chain. Exchanges will probably keep trading the smaller coins also.

jerguismi 9y ago
Bitcoin protocol is defined by bitcoin core client, and I would guess more than 99% percent of the services that process bitcoin transactions use that client. The services don't follow actively the hash rate and they won't change the client based on that - the network automatically adjusts to the hash rate available so that blocks come each 10 minutes. If there would exist some other cryptocurrency with more hash rate doesn't mean that services would start calling that one bitcoin.
- buttershakes 9y ago
  That's not what it means. You are right that those clients would begin rejecting blocks, but you can be sure that when customers are calling them asking why their transactions aren't being validated that they will switch. It's not economically feasible to run a business on a minority hash power chain with low transaction throughput.
  - jerguismi 9y ago
    "when customers are calling them asking why their transactions aren't being validated that they will switch." If majority of hashpower would start mining invalid blocks, there would still be some amount of hashpower mining the real chain. Transactions would confirm, albeit more slowly. For the miners mining the real chain the situation would be very good, because less competition from other miners -> more found blocks, more money. Probably the hash rate would grow pretty quickly, and if it wouldn't, the difficulty target would adjust after the 2 week difficulty adjustment period, and confirmation speeds would be back to normal.
    - buttershakes 9y ago
      The taking a little while to adapt is because their is less hash power, which means it takes longer to find blocks which means the remaining hash power will have less blocks for many many weeks. This means their expected return is lower, not higher, they aren't getting a larger percentage of found blocks, and those blocks occur farther apart. Then when the difficulty has fallen enough to make mining profitable and have a consistent 10 minute block time the larger hash power chain will be able to mine at a significantly faster rate on the lower hash power chain and that will make it susceptible to a %51 attack. The only way to avoid that scenario will be for them to switch the proof-of-work or manage to get a lot more hash power back on their chain. Being on the minority chain in that situation is frankly dangerous, the value should be discounted appropriately.
      - jerguismi 9y ago
        "This means their expected return is lower, not higher, they aren't getting a larger percentage of found blocks, and those blocks occur farther apart." The blocks would happen farther apart, but it would also mean that the remaining miners would have much higher change of actually finding a block, since there would be less competition. Also as there would be the same amount of transactions and less blocks, the blocks would have more collected transaction fees -> bigger reward. Also probably people/exchanges would increase the fees since competition would be bigger to get the transaction to a block. Also, it would make sense for exchanges etc to buy some mining power. That would make blocks appear faster, and also they would get the mining reweards, so it might be net positive. Or just simply bribe some miners to mine the valid chain. Very easy way to do that would be just to increase the transaction fees that they put to transactions.
        buttershakes 9y ago
        This isn't the way it would go down. :) Let's wait and see...
        ErikBjare 9y ago
        > The blocks would happen farther apart, but it would also mean that the remaining miners would have much higher change of actually finding a block, since there would be less competition. That's not true. The chance of finding a block is the same for every hash given a certain difficulty, regardless of competition. So a miner with a certain amount of hashing power will always have the same chance of finding a block until the difficulty changes.
  - BenoitP 9y ago
    As long as one miner is still mining the core chain, the transaction will be validated. It may take a little while at first, but difficulty will adapt. It's going to be 2 legitimate currencies that are going to differ in value in exchanges. And each current BTC holder will be able to spend 2 coins (provided they take precautions against replayability; like making at first a double-spend to different wallets on the two chains separately) Now the question is: what will the most BTC-rich people do?
    - buttershakes 9y ago
      It would take years for the difficulty to adapt to a 10 minute block time if the hash power dropped that much, there is a limit per two week adjustment period. More than likely the code would have to be modified to accommodate a rapidly dropping difficulty. See my other post, but that essentially destroys the security of the minority chain. BTC rich people are on both sides of the debate, expect to see some dumping all around as they make their positions known.
      - BenoitP 9y ago
        Not years. The difficulty is recalculated every 2016 blocks (14 days)[1]. If one chain has 10% hashing power, for less or equal to 14 days the transactions could take 10 times more to validate. But that's assuming markets aren't correcting miners in the "right" direction in the meantime. Who wants to waste electricity on undervalued coins? ---- Considering most of BTCs have been mined at the time bitcoin core had no competition; I'd say BTC rich people would tend to side with them. Because of emotional attachment, economic ties, and most importantly the dumb but very real reason of software maintenance. [1] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining
        comex 9y ago
        But if blocks are being produced at 10% of the expected rate, it will take 14*10=140 days before the difficulty is recalculated.
polyomino 9y ago
Depends what you mean by secure. If users cannot validate the blocks, then no matter how much hashpower is available, it is vulnerable to miner attack.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
jerguismi 9y ago
If miners would do a hard fork with different protocol rules, that would be called something other than bitcoin, maybe "segwit2x-bitcoin" or something.
- kbaker 9y ago
  If the exchanges trade 'segwit2x-coin' as Bitcoin, it will become 'Bitcoin', and the legacy coin, if it is possible to use at all, will have to be renamed.
  - xorcist 9y ago
    It's not that simple. Exchanges and custodial wallets hold other people's funds, so they are not allowed to decide arbitrarily which chain is "Bitcoin". That would be regulatory suicide.

jerguismi 9y ago

Bitcoin protocol is defined by bitcoin core client, and I would guess more than 99% percent of the services that process bitcoin transactions use that client. The services don't follow actively the hash rate and they won't change the client based on that - the network automatically adjusts to the hash rate available so that blocks come each 10 minutes. If there would exist some other cryptocurrency with more hash rate doesn't mean that services would start calling that one bitcoin.

buttershakes 9y ago
That's not what it means. You are right that those clients would begin rejecting blocks, but you can be sure that when customers are calling them asking why their transactions aren't being validated that they will switch. It's not economically feasible to run a business on a minority hash power chain with low transaction throughput.
- jerguismi 9y ago
  "when customers are calling them asking why their transactions aren't being validated that they will switch." If majority of hashpower would start mining invalid blocks, there would still be some amount of hashpower mining the real chain. Transactions would confirm, albeit more slowly. For the miners mining the real chain the situation would be very good, because less competition from other miners -> more found blocks, more money. Probably the hash rate would grow pretty quickly, and if it wouldn't, the difficulty target would adjust after the 2 week difficulty adjustment period, and confirmation speeds would be back to normal.
  - buttershakes 9y ago
    The taking a little while to adapt is because their is less hash power, which means it takes longer to find blocks which means the remaining hash power will have less blocks for many many weeks. This means their expected return is lower, not higher, they aren't getting a larger percentage of found blocks, and those blocks occur farther apart. Then when the difficulty has fallen enough to make mining profitable and have a consistent 10 minute block time the larger hash power chain will be able to mine at a significantly faster rate on the lower hash power chain and that will make it susceptible to a %51 attack. The only way to avoid that scenario will be for them to switch the proof-of-work or manage to get a lot more hash power back on their chain. Being on the minority chain in that situation is frankly dangerous, the value should be discounted appropriately.
    - jerguismi 9y ago
      "This means their expected return is lower, not higher, they aren't getting a larger percentage of found blocks, and those blocks occur farther apart." The blocks would happen farther apart, but it would also mean that the remaining miners would have much higher change of actually finding a block, since there would be less competition. Also as there would be the same amount of transactions and less blocks, the blocks would have more collected transaction fees -> bigger reward. Also probably people/exchanges would increase the fees since competition would be bigger to get the transaction to a block. Also, it would make sense for exchanges etc to buy some mining power. That would make blocks appear faster, and also they would get the mining reweards, so it might be net positive. Or just simply bribe some miners to mine the valid chain. Very easy way to do that would be just to increase the transaction fees that they put to transactions.
      - buttershakes 9y ago
        This isn't the way it would go down. :) Let's wait and see...
      - ErikBjare 9y ago
        > The blocks would happen farther apart, but it would also mean that the remaining miners would have much higher change of actually finding a block, since there would be less competition. That's not true. The chance of finding a block is the same for every hash given a certain difficulty, regardless of competition. So a miner with a certain amount of hashing power will always have the same chance of finding a block until the difficulty changes.
- BenoitP 9y ago
  As long as one miner is still mining the core chain, the transaction will be validated. It may take a little while at first, but difficulty will adapt. It's going to be 2 legitimate currencies that are going to differ in value in exchanges. And each current BTC holder will be able to spend 2 coins (provided they take precautions against replayability; like making at first a double-spend to different wallets on the two chains separately) Now the question is: what will the most BTC-rich people do?
  - buttershakes 9y ago
    It would take years for the difficulty to adapt to a 10 minute block time if the hash power dropped that much, there is a limit per two week adjustment period. More than likely the code would have to be modified to accommodate a rapidly dropping difficulty. See my other post, but that essentially destroys the security of the minority chain. BTC rich people are on both sides of the debate, expect to see some dumping all around as they make their positions known.
    - BenoitP 9y ago
      Not years. The difficulty is recalculated every 2016 blocks (14 days)[1]. If one chain has 10% hashing power, for less or equal to 14 days the transactions could take 10 times more to validate. But that's assuming markets aren't correcting miners in the "right" direction in the meantime. Who wants to waste electricity on undervalued coins? ---- Considering most of BTCs have been mined at the time bitcoin core had no competition; I'd say BTC rich people would tend to side with them. Because of emotional attachment, economic ties, and most importantly the dumb but very real reason of software maintenance. [1] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining
      - comex 9y ago
        But if blocks are being produced at 10% of the expected rate, it will take 14*10=140 days before the difficulty is recalculated.

polyomino 9y ago

Depends what you mean by secure. If users cannot validate the blocks, then no matter how much hashpower is available, it is vulnerable to miner attack.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

jerguismi 9y ago

If miners would do a hard fork with different protocol rules, that would be called something other than bitcoin, maybe "segwit2x-bitcoin" or something.

kbaker 9y ago
If the exchanges trade 'segwit2x-coin' as Bitcoin, it will become 'Bitcoin', and the legacy coin, if it is possible to use at all, will have to be renamed.
- xorcist 9y ago
  It's not that simple. Exchanges and custodial wallets hold other people's funds, so they are not allowed to decide arbitrarily which chain is "Bitcoin". That would be regulatory suicide.