
Bitcoin Is Having a Civil War as It Enters a Critical Month - discombobulate
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-10/bitcoin-risks-splintering-as-civil-war-enters-critical-month
======
buttershakes
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.

~~~
statoshi
Core developers never had control in the first place. No one has control; it's
weird to see so many people applying authoritarian concepts to an anti-
authoritarian system.

~~~
buttershakes
This is false. Bitcoin is a consensus system, and the default client for
better or for worse has a stickiness that doesn't exist in normal open source
software because of this group consensus. So there is definitely a measure of
control. Yes, it's not total or complete, but it is there.

~~~
DINKDINK
Bitcoin Core does not have control over the software users run on their
machine. If you believe differently, you don't understand how Bitcoin works.
You might be confusing network effect with control.

~~~
buckie
I think they mean that a blockchain doesn't exist in a vacuum, someone has to
write the code. While anyone can write a new client/protocol upgrade people
won't upgrade to just anyone's new client given how much value Bitcoin
represents.

No one has hard-control over bitcoin, but the leading dev group has some
manner of soft/non-coercive control (by momentum alone).

------
shp0ngle
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
> 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?

~~~
fpgaminer
AFAIK the paper is referring to thin clients, right? You can already run those
with the stock Bitcoin Core client. There's a command line argument that tells
it to prune any blocks older than X. The disk space required by such clients
is X times the maximum size of blocks + the size of the UTXO.

But you still need full nodes who maintain all historical data. Because,
AFAIK, there's no way other way to trustlessly establish a UTXO without
rescanning the whole blockchain. Maybe there are ways; I'm not that deep into
Bitcoin's internal at the moment.

~~~
rocqua
I think perhaps a soft-fork is possible where you store a hash of the UTXO
pool in e.g. the coinbase transaction. This way you can verify a given UTXO
pool by just checking the hash.

------
apeace
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-
conse...](https://medium.com/@DCGco/bitcoin-scaling-agreement-at-
consensus-2017-133521fe9a77)

[1] [https://blog.bitmain.com/en/uahf-contingency-plan-uasf-
bip14...](https://blog.bitmain.com/en/uahf-contingency-plan-uasf-bip148/)

[2] [https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-
segwit2x...](https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-
segwit2x/2017-July/000145.html)

~~~
yoodenvranx
> the current situation is thrilling to watch as a spectator

Is there a good "live-thread" where I can follow the events?

~~~
jerguismi
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)

------
arcaster
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
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
> 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
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.

------
xutopia
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
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
With an up-to-the-second, 24-hour market behind it where fortunes can be made
or lost on single tweets. Fun!

~~~
aianus
Fiat isn't much different. Forex is 24h a day and jumps around on central
banker quotes all the time.

------
BenoitP
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.

~~~
gomox
I was there at the ETH/ETC split and replay was a thing. Someone put together
a special smart contract that received 2 addresses (one for the ETH chain and
one for the ETC chain), checked which chain you were in and wired ether to
either address accordingly.

After doing that (and because valid transaction execution was contingent on
the actual chain you were in) each wallet became independent and you were free
to use funds in each as desired.

This is the contract:

[https://etherscan.io/address/0xaa1a6e3e6ef20068f7f8d8c835d2d...](https://etherscan.io/address/0xaa1a6e3e6ef20068f7f8d8c835d2d22fd5116444#code)

And this is the related helper that checks which chain you are in:

[https://etherscan.io/address/0x2bd2326c993dfaef84f696526064f...](https://etherscan.io/address/0x2bd2326c993dfaef84f696526064ff22eba5b362#code)

I'm not clear on what a BTC equivalent of this operation would be. Seems like
smart contracts saved the day, as trying to move BTC to 2 different wallets on
split chains by hand risks a race condition.

~~~
BenoitP
Thanks for this reference code!

I got to say, Ethereum really is showing the way to Bitcoin here. The smart
contract ecosystem surrounding it is astounding.

\----

The BTC equivalent would be to do it by hand; and I don't think it is all that
risky, as long as you keep control of all three addresses.

Or, ... maybe a BTC smart contract could help us do it easily? What do we need
to enable smart contracts on BTC?

Oh wait, that's right. We need Segwit. The thing potentially causing a fork
itself.

We're supposed to have it by the time Segwit2x's double-sized blocks hardfork
come, though ^^.

~~~
gomox
> and I don't think it is all that risky, as long as you keep control of all
> three addresses.

By "doing it by hand" I meant the following:

    
    
      - Original wallet A holds BTC before hard fork
      - Chain splits and forks coexist (lets call them C1 and C2)
      - New wallet W1 is created for use in the new chain C1 exclusively
      - New wallet W2 is created for use in the new chain C2 exclusively
      - You connect to network that uses C1, and move all the funds from A to W1
      - You connect to network that uses C2, and move all the funds from A to W2
    

The problem is in such a scenario you can expect that malicious software will
exist that monitors transactions being broadcasted in C1 to try to replay them
in C2. By the time you attempt to perform the last step outlined above, you
might find that the funds are gone from A in C2 because some replayed your
transaction on C2 already.

~~~
cesarb
A solution would be to add a dependency on the chain itself. By definition, in
a hard fork you have blocks in one chain which won't ever be accepted by the
other. Suppose C2 has a block, let's call it B2, which won't ever be accepted
by C1 (because it's larger than the C1 maximum block size, for instance).

Now get the block reward from B2, or some other coin which depends on it. This
block reward, and any coin which depends on it, will never be accepted by C1.
Mix it somehow with your coins from wallet A, and send the result to W2. Wait
a few confirmations for it to stick.

Now you have in C2 all your coins in W2, and in C1 all your coins are still in
A (the A->W2 transaction can't be replayed in C1, since it depends on an
invalid block). All that's left is to move all funds from A to W1; this will
happen only on C1, since it would be a double-spend in C2.

As you can see, it's not that complicated. The only hard part, if you aren't a
miner, is to get the "one-sided" coin, but I'd expect either a service to pop
up soon to do the mixing for you, for not much more than the transaction fee
(the "one-sided" coin can be recycled indefinitely), or a "faucet" to pop up
on C2 to give out tiny "one-sided" coins for anyone who needs them, for free.

~~~
gomox
> The only hard part, if you aren't a miner, is to get the "one-sided" coin

Indeed, but this is the kind of technical annoyance that cripples the "it just
works" perception/marketing of BTC. I guess this is what makes people look
forward to BTC ETFs as opposed to the real thing for their investo-gambling.

------
rwmj
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.

~~~
keyme
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
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.

------
rihegher
Already discussed a few days ago on HN
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14758587](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14758587)

------
Animats
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
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
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?

~~~
marme
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
"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.

------
placeybordeaux
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.

~~~
colordrops
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
> 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
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.

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

~~~
sp821543
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
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.

~~~
jbondeson
I find it sad (but not at all surprising) that this is the state of the
Bitcoin community. The level of discourse for what is supposed to be a
technology that is billed as "liberating money from the whims of governments"
has neatly conformed to exactly that of the current state of political
discourse. Everyone who disagrees with you is a shill/troll or an idiot.
Adding math and "decentralization" doesn't magically prevent humans from being
humans.

I'm sure given just enough time the "community" will structure itself into a
perfect replica of a modern bureaucracy.

 _edit: I 'm not just extrapolating from this one post a gander over at /r/btc
or /r/bitcoin shows the same lovely trend_

~~~
Torgo
How sad that a human-created and human-run endeavor turned out to be merely
human after all.

~~~
jbondeson
Yes, that is the one-line throw away dismissal of the whole affair if you
innately believe that everything we do will always devolve to the status quo.

I reject this form of behavioral nihilism and prefer to believe that ideas can
exact change in this world[1] and move people up and out of the status quo,
and lament the failure of even efforts I think were doomed from the beginning.

 _[1] Which isn 't to say I reject the notion that a large portion of people
are just out to get theirs and to hell with the rest_

~~~
Torgo
I am bullish on Bitcoin, even knowing this potential upcoming split. But as
early as 2010 one could read criticism that power would become centralized in
miners, it was only logical that if their interests and the communiity's
diverged that they would have and exert this extra and very human influence.

------
badloginagain
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.

~~~
fpgaminer
> Sorry if this is a stupid question, but why not both?

By both you mean, SegWit + Bigger blocks?

It's not possible today to raise the blocksize without exponentially
increasing the computing resources required to run a Bitcoin node. So it's not
a parameter that can be easily tweaked without drastic consequences.

Also, increasing the blocksize requires what's called a hardfork. That's a
backwards incompatible change. Anyone who hasn't updated their Bitcoin
software will be left in the dust, and potentially dangerously so.

SegWit, on the other hand, raises the effective blocksize to 2MB, patches a
bunch of issues, and provides a means to safely enable off-chain transactions
on top of Bitcoin. It does all this as a soft fork; backwards compatible.

That doesn't mean a blocksize increase isn't appropriate; it needs to happen
at some point. But because hardforking is so disruptive, it would be best to
roll in other breaking changes while we're at it. We should have a solution to
the exponential computation issue, and we should have a mechanism to increase
blocksize again in the future without another hardfork. Those are hard
problems to solve that will take time. SegWit was meant to be a stop-gap.

All that said, I'm not personally opposed to the idea of a more immediate
hardfork, ala SegWit2X. I don't think it's the _best_ idea, and I think the
hardfork should happen at least 12 months down the road, not 3 months as
SegWit2X plans, but the perfect is the enemy of the good. The big issue with
SegWit2X is that the developers working on it are not competent for the task
at hand, and it's being pushed by parties with perverse incentives.

~~~
badloginagain
Thanks for the explanation, that makes the bit about 80% of miners needing to
adopt make sense.

Why do you lack confidence in the SegWit2X developers? It seems the miners
would be the last ones wanting a potentially fatal bug. Do they have less to
lose if an exploit/honest bug burns the blockchain?

Again, apologies if these are uninformed questions- I have only a layman's
understanding of BTC.

~~~
fpgaminer
> Why do you lack confidence in the SegWit2X developers?

I think the fact that they're pushing a hardfork 3 months after SegWit
activates says a lot. We're talking about making all existing clients on a 40
billion dollar network obsolete and open to abuse. Giving only 3 months time
to upgrade is absurd. Also, I believe SegWit2X was spawned some time in May?
Being generous, that's only been 3 months of development so far.

When it comes to software like Bitcoin, where the slightest bug can result in
catastrophe, I want the most conservative developers imaginable.

The development of btc1 (the SegWit2X client), AFAIK, has not been open. Most
of it has occurred behind closed doors, with only the merges to the public
repo being visible.

Another notable concern is there was a pull request submitted recently against
the SegWit2X client (btc1). It changes the "seed nodes" list; adding in nodes
that will run SegWit2X software. That's fine, except one of the nodes belongs
to a company who's goal is to monitor and de-anonymize the Bitcoin network.
For those not familar, seed nodes are the nodes the Bitcoin client initially
connects to, from which they can learn about other nodes on the network.
Giving a company that is actively trying to make Bitcoin unfungible is ...
concerning to say the least.

> It seems the miners would be the last ones wanting a potentially fatal bug.
> Do they have less to lose if an exploit/honest bug burns the blockchain?

Just because you have a massive mining farm under your belt, doesn't mean you
know the first thing about the ins-and-outs of Bitcoin. Mining is such a small
part of what is otherwise a massive ocean of domain knowledge needed to
understand Bitcoin. The people who contribute to Bitcoin Core have been doing
it for 8+ years! And they're a band of cutthroats who aggressively review each
other's code. The developers working on SegWit2X have no of those advantages.

------
hellbanner
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-
bitco...](https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/38273/have-bitcoin-
developers-applied-the-solution-for-selfish-miner-attack)

------
JohnJamesRambo
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
It seems to me it is. From Gavin Andresen, one of the original developers:
[http://gavinandresen.ninja/does-more-transactions-
necessaril...](http://gavinandresen.ninja/does-more-transactions-necessarily-
mean-more-centralized)

"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."

~~~
JohnJamesRambo
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
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.

~~~
JohnJamesRambo
Well what are your numbers?

------
kanzure
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-c...](http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoins-segwit2x-scaling-proposal-
core-developers-react/)

[https://medium.com/@jimmysong/segwit2x-what-you-need-to-
know...](https://medium.com/@jimmysong/segwit2x-what-you-need-to-
know-b747e6326266)

[https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/major-exchanges-will-
co...](https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/major-exchanges-will-consider-
bitcoin-unlimited-new-asset/)

[https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/countdown-segwit-
these-...](https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/countdown-segwit-these-are-
dates-keep-eye/)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14758587](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14758587)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/sound8bits/comments/5xre70/the_orig...](https://www.reddit.com/r/sound8bits/comments/5xre70/the_origins_of_the_modern_blocksize_debate/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6mz19j/potential_n...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6mz19j/potential_network_disruption/dk5pftg/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6mgecw/frankensegw...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6mgecw/frankensegwit8x_testnet_irrecoverably_forks_a/)

[https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/bitcoin-unlimited-
miner...](https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/bitcoin-unlimited-miners-may-
be-preparing-51-attack-bitcoin/) or [https://medium.com/@WhalePanda/verified-
chatlogs-why-jihan-a...](https://medium.com/@WhalePanda/verified-chatlogs-why-
jihan-and-jiang-want-to-block-segwit-at-all-cost-bbf068c5ce0f)

how about some peer review yo,
[https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-
dev/2017...](https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-
dev/2017-July/014709.html) and
[https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-
dev/2017...](https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-
dev/2017-July/014710.html)

~~~
wyager
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)

~~~
kanzure
> To be specific, fully 88%(!) of miners are actively signaling support for
> the upgrade plan known as "segwit2x".[1]

Unfortunately, signaling is more like a bumper sticker you slap on your
blocks. The rules you deploy and actively use don't really have to conform to
what values you place in the blockheader. It's supposedly a way to communicate
your intentions regarding your future enforcement of certain rules...

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6ns1o6/antpool_jus...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6ns1o6/antpool_just_minded_their_first_bip91_block/dkbuetx/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6ntfhd/superb_segw...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6ntfhd/superb_segwit_uasf_bip148_segwit2x_bitcoinabc/dkc1al5/)

~~~
kbaker
Because btc1 is not released yet. Once it is, start expecting the real blocks
to be mined.

------
jancsika
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.

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

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

~~~
DiNovi
pretty sure LTC doesnt have lighting sidechain

~~~
mhluongo
@roasbeef posted about ltcd running on Litecoin with SegWit in May [0].

[0] -
[http://lightning.community/release/software/lnd/lightning/20...](http://lightning.community/release/software/lnd/lightning/2017/05/03/litening/)

------
bleair
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

------
deletia
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.

------
someSven
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.

------
jgord
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.

------
xiaoma
Standard. This is what bitcoin leaders do.

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

~~~
rjbwork
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.

~~~
DiNovi
Ethereum is up 17x in 4 months. So uh... popped aint the right word

~~~
rjbwork
Fair, but it's also down >2x in 1 month so...

------
m777z
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
You can't invest in a Cryptocurrency. It's called gambling.

edit: autocorrect.

~~~
linsomniac
Do you want to know the secret to making a small fortune in cryptocurrencies?
Start with a large one.

~~~
jethro_tell
Wait, you missed the part where I have to buy your ebook.

------
pteredactyl
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
I think you're reading too much into it. It's clickbait.

~~~
ascendantlogic
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.

------
gremlinsinc
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
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
Also wondering if it's time to sell mine. Already sold like 70%...

~~~
cableshaft
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
If you're convinced it's going to fall, then it's stupid to hold. You can sell
and rebuy at lower price.

~~~
cableshaft
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.

