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In the last week there was a fear of the Bitcoin Cash fork splitting the community. The fork failed so spectacularly that the biggest problem for Bitcoin / Bitc

In the last week there was a fear of the Bitcoin Cash fork splitting the community. The fork failed so spectacularly that the biggest problem for Bitcoin / Bitcoin Cash holders was how to dump Bitcoin Cash when all reputable exchanges are afraid of implementing Bitcoin Cash. Now it's clear for most people that Bitcoin Cash failed. Also Segregated Witness will lock in on Aug. 8 with a very high probability, and activate at the end of August.

chii 9y ago
is there a nice summary of what happened with the fork anywhere? I want to read a neutral, unbiased summary, as i haven't really been keeping up with the bitcoin community for a while now (and i don't want to read the drama/politics, just what happened).
- oskarth 9y ago
  There's no summary that I am aware of, but a nice trick is to go to https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/ (against fork) and https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/ https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/ (pro fork), sort by most popular last week and read what they have to say in the stickies/FAQ. They are both biased, but if you read both accounts you can form your own opinion. This is a good heuristic in general. Everyone has an agenda and it is very hard to find an unbiased source of anything, especially for contemporary news. It is often better to find sources where the bias is clear, as opposed to hidden. Then find the strongest contradictory argument and compare the two. UPDATE: Parent asked for a summary, not a technical deep dive. Here it is from "/r/btc" (pro fork) POV: https://i.imgur.com/uJ9XE06.png https://i.imgur.com/uJ9XE06.png and from "/r/bitcoin" (against fork) POV: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6r05nm/megathread_on_august_1_2017_at_612pm_utc_block/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6r05nm/megathread_... Follow the mentioned links if you are interested to get into more details.
  - xorcist 9y ago
    The S/N ratio of Reddit is slightly above 4chan, I find it mostly an exercise in image macros and copy paste. No development takes palce there. If you are interested in the protocol and the software, I would recommend lurking the IRC channels and/or mailing list. There is drama there too, but it takes the form of rational arguments and walls of text.
oskarth 9y ago
> The fork failed so spectacularly Really? How do you quantify this? Most people who are pro big blocks felt it went well (r/btc) and it'll take a while to make it profitable for miners to mine it. Many people who are against big blocks thought it'd immediately dive to $1, which is 1/200 of where it is currently at. It also seems like many pro-Blockstream people would dump Bitcoin Cash regardless, just because they don't believe in the rationale for it (r/bitcoin threads about how to sell Bitcoin Cash w/o analysis). You could argue about market liquidity etc, but 4B market cap is hardly a failure. This doesn't mean it is a success. It is more accurate to call it undecided for the time being. To call it a failure is definitely premature and uncharitable, though.
- pakitan 9y ago
  The market cap figure is meaningless precisely because of the lack of liquidity. You could make your own bitcoin clone, put it up for trade at some unknown exchange for $1000 and claim that you have a $17B "successful fork".
  - bhaak 9y ago
    Market cap is a somewhat flawed metric, I agree, and it should not be looked at in isolation. The daily volume tells you that Bitcoin Cash is traded (or maybe dumped?) quite a bit. It's volume is about that of LTC currently which really is not too shaby. Don't forget that Bitcoin Cash was an as friendly fork as possible. I don't think anybody realistically expected that it would overtake Bitcoin right away. I'm not even sure if the initiators expect it to overtake Bitcoin at all. In a slightly conspiracy theoristic view, it might just have been a rehearsal for if the 2X part of Segwit2X doesn't happen and a hostile takeover might be tried. Cryptocurrencies don't easily die and so far, Bitcoin Cash is doing okay. Calling it a failure at this point is premature.
- xorcist 9y ago
  > people who are pro big blocks [...] > people who are against big blocks Please don't play up this narrative unnecessarily. It's an easy narrative, but it's also wrong and misses important things about governance and identity. It makes it sound like the Segregated Witness proposal, which won supermajority support on the development list, does not increase block size (which it does, just in a backwards compatible way). It has been known for quite some time that apart from a bug in the software, that could destroy value in an instant, the biggest challenge will be managing an open source project in the face of competing interests. It's the first time the IETF governance model meets fintech, and if Bitcoin continues to grow it will make the patent drama round rtcweb look like child's play. > pro-Blockstream people This is also simplifying beyond what's reasonable. Bitcoin is an open source project. There is a mailing list. You can join it. It's not always roses and civilized technical discussion, but every argument can be heard out and there are enough people lurking the sidelines to act as a guard against abuses of power. The Blockstream narrative plays down the contributions of Lau, Lopp, Lombrozo and dozens of others which do a lot of the development and release management of the software.
danmaz74 9y ago
Actually there are loads of reputable exchanges where you can sell BCH. The problem is that the networks is so slow and unreliable for now, that it takes ages to move your BCH to those exchanges.
- elif 9y ago
  Source? I see up to 2-3 blocks some hours, 1sat/byte fees being accepted.
  - danmaz74 9y ago
    2-3 blocks "some hours" is not good enough, and most exchanges require 20 confirmations. Anyway, there was a difficulty adjustment in the last hours, so things should improve.

chii 9y ago

is there a nice summary of what happened with the fork anywhere? I want to read a neutral, unbiased summary, as i haven't really been keeping up with the bitcoin community for a while now (and i don't want to read the drama/politics, just what happened).

oskarth 9y ago
There's no summary that I am aware of, but a nice trick is to go to https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/ (against fork) and https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/ https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/ (pro fork), sort by most popular last week and read what they have to say in the stickies/FAQ. They are both biased, but if you read both accounts you can form your own opinion. This is a good heuristic in general. Everyone has an agenda and it is very hard to find an unbiased source of anything, especially for contemporary news. It is often better to find sources where the bias is clear, as opposed to hidden. Then find the strongest contradictory argument and compare the two. UPDATE: Parent asked for a summary, not a technical deep dive. Here it is from "/r/btc" (pro fork) POV: https://i.imgur.com/uJ9XE06.png https://i.imgur.com/uJ9XE06.png and from "/r/bitcoin" (against fork) POV: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6r05nm/megathread_on_august_1_2017_at_612pm_utc_block/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6r05nm/megathread_... Follow the mentioned links if you are interested to get into more details.
- xorcist 9y ago
  The S/N ratio of Reddit is slightly above 4chan, I find it mostly an exercise in image macros and copy paste. No development takes palce there. If you are interested in the protocol and the software, I would recommend lurking the IRC channels and/or mailing list. There is drama there too, but it takes the form of rational arguments and walls of text.

oskarth 9y ago

> The fork failed so spectacularly Really? How do you quantify this? Most people who are pro big blocks felt it went well (r/btc) and it'll take a while to make it profitable for miners to mine it. Many people who are against big blocks thought it'd immediately dive to $1, which is 1/200 of where it is currently at. It also seems like many pro-Blockstream people would dump Bitcoin Cash regardless, just because they don't believe in the rationale for it (r/bitcoin threads about how to sell Bitcoin Cash w/o analysis). You could argue about market liquidity etc, but 4B market cap is hardly a failure. This doesn't mean it is a success. It is more accurate to call it undecided for the time being. To call it a failure is definitely premature and uncharitable, though.

pakitan 9y ago
The market cap figure is meaningless precisely because of the lack of liquidity. You could make your own bitcoin clone, put it up for trade at some unknown exchange for $1000 and claim that you have a $17B "successful fork".
- bhaak 9y ago
  Market cap is a somewhat flawed metric, I agree, and it should not be looked at in isolation. The daily volume tells you that Bitcoin Cash is traded (or maybe dumped?) quite a bit. It's volume is about that of LTC currently which really is not too shaby. Don't forget that Bitcoin Cash was an as friendly fork as possible. I don't think anybody realistically expected that it would overtake Bitcoin right away. I'm not even sure if the initiators expect it to overtake Bitcoin at all. In a slightly conspiracy theoristic view, it might just have been a rehearsal for if the 2X part of Segwit2X doesn't happen and a hostile takeover might be tried. Cryptocurrencies don't easily die and so far, Bitcoin Cash is doing okay. Calling it a failure at this point is premature.
xorcist 9y ago
> people who are pro big blocks [...] > people who are against big blocks Please don't play up this narrative unnecessarily. It's an easy narrative, but it's also wrong and misses important things about governance and identity. It makes it sound like the Segregated Witness proposal, which won supermajority support on the development list, does not increase block size (which it does, just in a backwards compatible way). It has been known for quite some time that apart from a bug in the software, that could destroy value in an instant, the biggest challenge will be managing an open source project in the face of competing interests. It's the first time the IETF governance model meets fintech, and if Bitcoin continues to grow it will make the patent drama round rtcweb look like child's play. > pro-Blockstream people This is also simplifying beyond what's reasonable. Bitcoin is an open source project. There is a mailing list. You can join it. It's not always roses and civilized technical discussion, but every argument can be heard out and there are enough people lurking the sidelines to act as a guard against abuses of power. The Blockstream narrative plays down the contributions of Lau, Lopp, Lombrozo and dozens of others which do a lot of the development and release management of the software.

danmaz74 9y ago

Actually there are loads of reputable exchanges where you can sell BCH. The problem is that the networks is so slow and unreliable for now, that it takes ages to move your BCH to those exchanges.

elif 9y ago
Source? I see up to 2-3 blocks some hours, 1sat/byte fees being accepted.
- danmaz74 9y ago
  2-3 blocks "some hours" is not good enough, and most exchanges require 20 confirmations. Anyway, there was a difficulty adjustment in the last hours, so things should improve.