
Bitcoin Cash: Why It's Forking the Blockchain and What That Means - nicpottier
https://www.coindesk.com/coindesk-explainer-bitcoin-cash-forking-blockchain/
======
gtrubetskoy
8MB block means the block chain grows by 1,207,959,552 (~1GB) per day, or
~365GB per year. This means that now not everyone has the internet connection
or the disk space to keep a copy of the block chain, and more control is in
the hands of the miners.

I understand the reason for a larger block - it seems like it's pure profit
for the miners (should we just refer to it as greed?), but I do not understand
the objection to SegWit which is essential for lightning to work.

I am fairly convinced at this point that off-chain transactions as described
in the lightning docs [1] is the future. The block chain cannot possibly
support all the transactions, there could be millions per second if
micropayments do take off, and that will most likely happen via the channels
as described in the lightning docs.

[1] [https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lightning-
rfc/blob/maste...](https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lightning-
rfc/blob/master/00-introduction.md)

Edit: If you're not familiar with lightning, you should read up on it. The
gist of it (my understanding, I am not exactly a bitcoin expert) is that if I
trust someone, there is no need to announce to the whole world that I just
gave my kids ice cream money, it's between me and them. And it's instant. The
blockchain is used only as last resort, when one of the parties does not
cooperate as as agreed.

~~~
simias
I always thought that was a weak argument. There are currently 8403 nodes
online if I believe [https://bitnodes.21.co/](https://bitnodes.21.co/), that's
not exactly impressive. If a big miner wanted to take over the majority of the
nodes they could probably afford to just spawn spawn 10 thousand nodes.

Not that it will do them a lot of good, what matters most is what the
exchanges and other important economic entities handling bitcoins consider
"the real bitcoin", having a majority of nodes won't do much.

There's simply not enough incentives for Bitcoin users to spawn a node so most
people prefer to use a light wallet.

Furthermore ~400GB per year is not particularly insane, you can get a 6TB
drive for less than $200 and that'll be enough to store more than 15 years
worth of blockchain.

As for bandwidth it amounts to less than 14kB/s on average.

>there could be millions per second if micropayments do take off, and that
will most likely happen via the channels as described in the lightning docs

Maybe, but I'm a bit surprised that so many people believe that LN will be
successful when we have so little data on how it'll actually work. But I'm
going to repeat myself, I already explained my concerns here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14759965](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14759965)
(with some insightful replies).

In particular I can't really imagine how LN could reach a Visa-level number of
transactions without having a few mega "nexus nodes" concentrating most of the
open LN channels. That would give those nodes some power as they could decide
who they pair with (which channels they open) which would be a big blow to the
decentralized nature of Bitcoin.

The idea that every bitcoin user would each end up having a handful of
channels open and we'd keep routing around the graph (with all the balancing
issues it involves) to pay everything seems rather optimistic and aligns
poorly with real-world incentives.

~~~
gtrubetskoy
> In particular I can't really imagine how LN could reach a Visa-level number
> of transactions without having a few mega "nexus nodes"

I think that's a valid point, but we won't know how it will play out until we
actually get there. It seems to me that the "large block" crowd is of the
"let's not go there" opinion, but I think they're resisting the inevitable.

~~~
smokeyj
> I think that's a valid point, but we won't know how it will play out

That sounds like a terrible plan. Let it play out on Litecoin or some other
toy blockchain.

The large block crowd wants the easiest most straight forward way of scaling
now. Which isn't to say other solutions aren't welcomed. But it's strange that
the Core team has made it an either or.

It's weird how in certain forums there seems to be overwhelming support for
blockstream - but everyone I meet in real life doesn't have that same
enthusiasm.

~~~
MichaelGG
Well some of the big blockers are against anything that'd prevent ASICBoost
(which is a really fun/neat thing, look up the details if you haven't.) That
does cast some suspicion on the purity of their motives. But I think the
slightly-larger blocksize (8MB) for now is quite reasonable, and the lack of
even 2MB size is really indefensible.

~~~
smokeyj
I don't know much about ASICBoost - but if the reason for changing the PoW
algo is because of the US patent system.. then let the US patent system catch
up, not the other way around. Bitcoin wasn't designed so that American miners
have an equal opportunity.. Who comes up with these ideas

~~~
MichaelGG
Parents aside, I understand AsicBoost encourages empty blocks.

------
MichaelGG
Do I have this right? Some miners want to increase blocksize, keeping Bitcoin
in line with its original "peer to peer" nature, and thus are going to do
Bitcoin Cash, with 8MB blocks to start.

Others want Bitcoin to become a settlement layer, and certain backers have
said that $1000 tx fees would be great, since that means BTC won as a
settlement layer. This kills the peer to peer aspect though, and end users
would rely on offchain third parties to actually get transactions done. This
group has fought to keep small blocks, despite recent congestion and
increasing fees. The argument is that increasing blocksize can't solve all
problems so why even start, and that increasing it even a bit would somehow
prevent regular people from validating the chain.

Complicating matters a bit is that some miners have an optimised way of
mining, exploiting Bitcoin block header layout to get an optimisation during
hash calculations (AsicBoost). This is a 20% advantage but also encourages
mining occasional empty blocks. AsicBoost is incompatible with many
suggestions of changing the Bitcoin protocol, giving economic incentives to
object to such things. This muddies the water.

On the other side, companies have invested a lot into becoming clearinghouses
(Coinbase) or inventing ways to do offchain tx (Blockstream) casting doubt on
their intentions of killing P2P and making BTC just for settlements.

It's not clear to me why an increase to 2 or 4MB wasn't done though. Perhaps
to force the issue?

~~~
apeace
Everything you said is correct AFAIK.

> It's not clear to me why an increase to 2 or 4MB wasn't done though. Perhaps
> to force the issue?

Yes, and it seems also out of spite. They could have increased to 2MB in order
to avoid the horrible congestion on the network for a couple years. Once that
was in place, they could have continued the SegWit work.

In fact, originally, everyone was in support of SegWit. Even the big-blocks
camp (we can see that from the New York Agreement, where virtually the whole
industry supported both big-blocks and SegWit). The only reason so many like
Bitcoin Cash are against it today is because the debate has become
emotionally-charged and us-versus-them. SegWit is an all-around good idea.

But the Core developers held out from a blocksize increase because, once they
had declared that going from 1MB -> 2MB would be the end of the world, the
network would become "centralized", etc, they didn't want to walk it back and
simply compromise.

IMO, this is the main reason the ecosystem is migrating to Ethereum. It's not
because of the Turing-complete scripting that is possible on Ehtereum, it's
because development has been a lot more sane.

Despite the problems they've had (e.g. the DAO), the Ethereum ecosystem is
more diverse and professional. They rationally discuss problems and make
tradeoffs. They encourage alternate implementations, whereas the Core folks
have engaged in baseless fear tactics to ensure theirs is the only
implementation on the network[0] (and not talking about protocol changes--
simply alternate implementations of the same protocols and consensus rules).

I think unless these leadership problems are addressed somehow, Bitcoin is
going to fade into obscurity as others, like Ethereum, lead the way.

[0]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20160316061949/https://blog.conf...](https://web.archive.org/web/20160316061949/https://blog.conformal.com/the-
bitcoin-consensus-red-herring/)

\---

EDIT: Corrected "Bitcoin ABC" to "Bitcoin Cash"

~~~
ChrisClark
I'd like to comment about something I realized when reading your post. About
the difference between the Bitcoin development/community and the Ethereum one.
If you want to completely oversimplify it, the Bitcoin community appears to be
full of fear, anger, attacks and competition among themselves. While Ethereum
seems to be compromise, inclusion, discussion, working towards a greater goal.
You see a change proposed, and one developer comments that they think it's a
bad idea for certain reasons. Then after a month of discussion he will come
back and say that, yeah, I was wrong, it's actually a good idea.

The recent multi-sig wallet hack was due to some bad refactoring by one of the
developers on the Parity node/wallet team. Gavin Wood wrote a post about it,
and instead of blaming his employee, he blamed himself, that he didn't put
enough security into the Solidity language itself. And then he proposed some
changes to make it safer.

There definitely was some ugliness with the ETH/ETC fork and controversies,
but now we have pull requests from ETC developers that help improve ETH.

There seems to be a lot less ego in the Ethereum developer community. The
fighting inside the Bitcoin community leads to attacking other communities
too. Whenever there is a setback or hack or just the Ether price drops a bit,
the threads are full of Bitcoiners coming in to laugh, attack, 'concern
troll'. But you rarely see the reverse. Usually the attacks on Bitcoin come
from the people who think all cryptocurrencies are a scam, they target
everyone equally. Of course there are exceptions, there are amazing people in
Bitcoin and horrible people in Ethereum. I'm just making a broad
generalization on the feeling someone gets when reading and talking in their
communities.

It's no wonder that Ethereum has the largest developer interest, it's just a
really nice place to work.

~~~
apeace
Exactly. To make an analogy, consider what would happen if the
president/congress appointed an incompetent fool as the chair of the Federal
Reserve. The whole world would lose confidence in the dollar, and another
currency would take over.

This is why I agree with Mike Hearn that the "Bitcoin experiment has
failed"[0]. In fact it already did so in late 2015.

He makes technical arguments there which you could debate (some of his
technical arguments have been shown to be misleading[1]).

But I think where he hits the nail on the head is that Bitcoin is now simply a
circus. Unless the community can be united again, it won't last.

The Reddit censorship, DoS attacks, "scaling" conferences where solutions are
not allowed to be proposed. It's childish, and almost shocking that people
have stood behind their ridiculous behavior for so long, when they are on the
verge of changing the world economy.

[0] [https://blog.plan99.net/the-resolution-of-the-bitcoin-
experi...](https://blog.plan99.net/the-resolution-of-the-bitcoin-experiment-
dabb30201f7)

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14833567](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14833567)

~~~
mike_hearn
I rarely comment on Bitcoin these days, although I do still read things about
it from time to time. I realise we're mostly in agreement, but on the
technical arguments I'd like to briefly defend myself here - the arguments I
made were not misleading or dishonest in any way. It's rather the post you
link to which is.

No particularly special Bitcoin knowledge is required to figure out why, just
careful study of that post with a critical and analytical mind (and not the
mind of a "fan"). I wasted far too much of my life dealing with people Peter
Todd had deliberately confused back in those years - it's a Sisyphean task
that simply never ends if you let it - so I don't wish to write out a long
rebuttal now, especially as I don't know you. But see if you can figure it
out. Like I said, you don't need me to explain if you study things carefully.

~~~
apeace
Thanks! I will certainly re-read it.

As I said to Peter Todd in that thread, I'm a neutral observer and a fan of
both of yours. Having been a programmer for over a decade, it's a shame that
even someone like me can get so lost in the rhetoric of this debate.

Thanks for all your blog posts, I point people to them all the time. My
greatest wish (something I tried to communicate to Peter Todd) is that Core
would write some thoughtful, clear, well-argued posts like yours.

But I suppose it doesn't matter, because as we both agree, the experiment has
already failed.

------
grabcocque
Javascript developer: "We like to constantly replace all our frameworks every
18 months"

Cryptocurrency developer: "Hold my beer"

~~~
artursapek
Bitcoin actually rarely changes, which is why this is a big event. You're
probably thinking of all of the shitcoins/ICOs that come out nearly every day
- make no mistake, those are a cash grab.

~~~
Taek
This is only a big event if you choose to run the BitcoinCash software. If you
stick with Bitcoin-core you aren't even going to notice that a thing happened.

~~~
geofft
It matters for the ability to convert BTC to other currencies (like USD),
right? If I'm understanding this right, an existing bitcoin is now valid in
_both_ the BTC chain _and_ the BCC chain, and presumably the world isn't going
to let you sell the resulting BTC for its previous value _and_ the resulting
BCC for its previous value (since the two sales would now be transactions on
two different chains). So unless BCC fails completely, the market value of BTC
will be reduced by the market value of BCC, which seems like a thing you'd
notice.

~~~
fapjacks
Yes, this is right, but it appears that the value of the original coin and the
forked coin don't correlate with one another too strongly after the fork. I
mean here that it appears that the market value of BTC will not be reduced by
the market value of GCC, in such a manner as you suggest. The less popular
coin after the fork certainly is less valuable, but after the fork, the two
values follow their own destinies, unrelated to one another.

------
apeace
Something I haven't seen in the comments yet: it's a realistic possibility
that the Core team will make a change to Bitcon's proof-of-work, with the
explicit goal of shutting down miners' efforts to implement the "2X" part of
Segwit2X (a block size increase).

So while disaster has been avoided for now, and Bitcoin Cash is unlikely to
garner much support, they could become the longest chain within a year or two
if they keep at it. As the Bitcoin Cash developer said in the article:

> If the Segwit2x agreement fails to implement the 2x part, which is not
> entirely unreasonable, and only ends up being being basically SegWit without
> the 2x, many miners will likely defect to Bitcoin Cash.

He's right. The Core-versus-the-world battle is far from over.

~~~
flashdance
> He's right. The Core-versus-the-world battle is far from over.

Proposals from the core development team have widespread support from
businesses and exchanges [1].

Saying it's bitcoin core versus the world is a tad bit hyperbolic.

[1]
[https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Segwit_support](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Segwit_support)

~~~
apeace
Yes, SegWit has always had widespread support.

But what I would call "most of the industry" supports a block size increase,
in addition to SegWit[0].

As I said in the parent comment, rather than making a compromise with this
huge portion of the community, Core has discussed changing the proof of work
algorithm in order to shut them out.

I don't think "Core versus the world" is hyperbolic at all.

EDIT: To add to that, remember that Core had to propose a soft-fork which
risked a chain split in order to force SegWit into activation. Many were
holding back support for the promise of a block size increase. That is why
SegWit is now going to lock in: because the New York Agreement folks rallied
together, compromised like adults, and agreed to implement both SegWit and a
block size increase.

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

------
rcarrigan87
Still wrapping my head around the Bitcoin ecosystem, but listened to an
interview of Nick Szabo by Tim Ferris where Nick pretty explicitly indicates
that increasing the block size isn't a good idea and shouldn't even be a
debate. He makes it sound like anyone in the "know" understands this.

What is the argument for the other side?

A Reddit post has the quote here, but I recommend the whole interview.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6fhmge/nick_szabo_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/6fhmge/nick_szabo_theres_an_obsessive_group_of_people/)

[https://tim.blog/2017/06/04/nick-szabo/](https://tim.blog/2017/06/04/nick-
szabo/)

~~~
MichaelGG
Satoshi said blockchain size isn't an issue, and the solution is to not care
about how big it gets. For this guy to pretend this is some super advanced
thing mere mortals can't understand and shouldn't talk about is obscene.

------
CaliforniaKarl
Reminder:

You can monitor
[https://www.btcforkmonitor.info](https://www.btcforkmonitor.info) to see when
the forks take place.

(The site was discussed in
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14809259](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14809259))

------
hn_throwaway_99
This is not surprising. The miners (or I guess I should say "some miners")
want to retain their power by keeping all transactions on-chain in Bitcoin
Cash, but I think at the end of the day a coin only has value if it has wide
acceptance in the community, mainly including the people who actually use it
for transactions. I think Bitcoin Cash will fail, but in the short term people
will try to see how far "greater fool theory" will go by selling their Bitcoin
Cash coins while still holding on to their bitcoins on the main blockchain.

~~~
smokeyj
> want to retain their power by keeping all transactions on-chain in Bitcoin
> Cash

Exactly what power is that? The power to collect smaller mining fees?

Honest question - what's the status of Lightning? Core promotes it as the
solution to scaling and it's essentially a page on github. Litecoin already
has Segwit and no one is using Lightning. Am I missing something here?

~~~
colatkinson
Lightning implementations exist and are fairly usable (although I've found
there is some disagreement on e.g. public key format for peers). Check out the
following:

* Lit: [https://github.com/mit-dci/lit](https://github.com/mit-dci/lit) * Eclair: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fr.acinq.eclai...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fr.acinq.eclair.wallet) * lnd: [https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd](https://github.com/lightningnetwork/lnd) * lightning-c: [https://github.com/ElementsProject/lightning](https://github.com/ElementsProject/lightning)

Do these projects have the nicest UX? No. Is it fairly trivial to hook up a
shiny UI to their RPC interfaces? Yes.

It's going to take a bit to roll out the infrastructure necessary, but a 1.7
MB block size is good enough until then. Especially if miners stop using
ASICBOOST and mining near-empty blocks.

------
simias
_Another difference is the project says it will support multiple
implementations of its software, a move that 's not surprising given the
criticism that Bitcoin Core's software is too dominant on the bitcoin
network._

What does that mean exactly? Bitcoin being open source and anybody being able
to connect to the network means that anybody can fork the client if they want
to, doesn't it?

After all that's exactly what this Bitcoin ABC fork is doing.

~~~
jstanley
Yep. You're right, it doesn't mean anything.

What they're trying to say is they'll support multiple implementations of the
software on the same network (unlike Bitcoin ABC, which is a fork of the
software _and_ a fork of the network).

But Bitcoin already supports that too. There is bitcoin core, bitcoin knots,
bitcoinj, btc1, bitcore all running on the same network.

~~~
TD-Linux
I think they also may be referring to some Bitcoin Core authors recommending
against other implementations - the concern is if the implementations contain
an error in the consensus code, they could accidentally fork off, and
potentially lose funds for the user. For similar reasons, Bitcoin Core builds
reproducible static builds and recommends those, the minimize the chance of
behavior divergence.

But you're right - it's merely a suggestion from a portion of the developers,
and it certainly doesn't stop anyone.

------
k2xl
Related, I posted recently a step by step guide on moving bitcoin out of an
exchange (like Coinbase) to your own wallet.

[https://hackernoon.com/how-to-move-money-from-coinbase-to-
yo...](https://hackernoon.com/how-to-move-money-from-coinbase-to-your-own-
wallet-2507aef1f717)

Here is why you need to move from Coinbase to your own wallet before Aug 1st:
[https://keepingstock.net/move-your-coins-out-of-coinbase-
to-...](https://keepingstock.net/move-your-coins-out-of-coinbase-to-a-wallet-
that-you-can-control-before-aug-959ea4cd625a)

------
GigabyteCoin
>Indeed, the cryptocurrency is currently trading at $461, meaning it's worth
about 18% of bitcoin's current price of $2,568, in an already-open futures
market.

This statement needs a lot of asterisks added to it imho.

BCC has been trading at $600K USD volume in the past 24 hours [0] compared to
Bitcoin's trading volume topping over $600M USD in the same time period.

BCC futures have only been trading on a single, unpopular exchange, that does
not allow withdrawal of the coins being traded until only after the fork takes
place.

If you can send them BCC to trade before the fork, I fail to see why you can
only cash out after the fork.

I'm all for Bigger Blocks, but claiming that BCC has 18% support of the
community based on that single price valuation is extremely misleading imho.

From a volume standpoint, I would argue that it has less than 1% support of
the community at large.

[0] [https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin-
cash/](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bitcoin-cash/)

------
jsnathan
Chains splitting off is a very interesting phenomenon. Just like with Ethereum
Classic splitting off Ethereum, the value of the original chain can be divided
into two, albeit unequal, parts. The process may even create new value -
though I suppose it might just as well destroy value.

What I've also wondered about though is multiple chains combining into one.
Does anyone know if this has happened before?

I believe there is a strong analogy here to how company stock can evolve, when
companies are either split out as separate entities, or merged into one,
respectively.

~~~
Rmilb
Multiple chains that have diverged in the past can never join together. Unless
you want to double the amount of total coins in the network. Its technically
possible if two different chains wanted to merge they could decide on which
block they will merge at, but there is the huge issue of agreeing on an
exchange rate between the both old coins to the new coins.

~~~
rtkwe
From a strict ledger of transactions metaphor of the blockchain they could be
joined without double value but it'd require that all blocks from both chains
were strictly disjoint sets of transactions and no account overspent when
combining both chains. On a more real technical level though the protocol
doesn't have a way to have two parent blocks even if the two chains satisfied
the conditions to avoid double spending.

------
placeybordeaux
One important detail that this article is missing is that the proposed fork
forces a new sighash. This is important because it prevents a replay attack.

[https://steemit.com/bitcoincash/@bitbizke/bitcoin-cash-
imple...](https://steemit.com/bitcoincash/@bitbizke/bitcoin-cash-implements-
strong-replay-protection)

------
GordonS
I hold a small amount of Bitcoin today (in my own wallet, not in an exchange).

How do I access my Bitcoin Cash coins after the split? Is there another wallet
I need to install?

Also, is there any news on what exchanges will trade Bitcoin Cash?

------
josh2600
This whole thing is actually really straightforward if you evaluate it from
the perspective of governance. In bitcoin, miners run software and the
software they run controls the performance of the network. Miners therefore
control the future software state of the network.

Anything that moves transactions off of the network or decreases the number of
miners queried per transaction is therefore antithetical.

If you are a miner, lightning and segwit just hurt you. The only way you'll
allow them is if you believe that to do otherwise would slay the golden goose.

Edit: Source: I run a crypto hedge fund.

~~~
Obi_Juan_Kenobi
The counterpoint to this (not that I necessarily disagree) would be that 2nd
layers solutions add new value to the network, and thus add value to a Bitcoin
transaction. This is very likely to occur to some degree (e.g. micro-
transactions and fast retail transactions that Bitcoin can't do), but will
also cannibalize some on-chain activity.

Also, altcoins present a real competitive risk; failure to maintain an
advantage over them will see network value approach zero.

------
ve55
This should be very interesting.

It's quite possible that this fork is negligible for awhile. But because
parties such as Core will likely refuse to let the segwit2x part of segwit
happen [1, many others], if the miners follow through on their promises, then
this could be real entertaining to watch if the larger miners start switching
to BCC during this later period.

Just like when ETH split into ETH and ETC, it seemed as if almost everyone
dumped their ETC coins as quickly as possible. But contrary to what most
predicted, the chain ended up having real value. It seems like quite a few
Bitcoin holders are planning on doing this as well, although many are being
more cautious this time around and holding their BCC instead.

You don't want to sell your stash of the next Bitcoin, just in case you're
wrong. These things are impossible to predict for normal investors.

[1]
[https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Segwit_support](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Segwit_support)

~~~
danmaz74
> You don't want to sell your stash of the next Bitcoin, just in case you're
> wrong

If you think that the price will first crash and then bounce, you might want
to sell your stash and then buy it back at a lower price. To keep the price up
it wouldn't be enough to have many who wait and see; you also need lots of
buyers for all the BCC that will be sold by those who have BTC and will want
to get something out of their BCC as soon as possible.

------
bitcoinfused
I've got some stored in a client called bitcoin-qt, which I haven't opened in
years and I expect would take months to catch up with the block chain as it
is. Should I be worried about trying to shift them before (or after) the fork?
Am I likely to be tied into which ever fork the bitcoin-qt maintainers
support? Should I be trying to transfer to a paper wallet before the fork?

~~~
cesarb
If you haven't opened it in years, _do nothing_. Wait for the dust to settle.
_Then_ you can decide what to do with it; whatever you have in that wallet
will still be valid on both sides of the fork.

------
Nursie
So... were I a bitcoin holder at the present time (I'm not) then I'm
potentially going to have those same bitcoin on two chains? So depending on
what value is held in either chain this could be a huge financial boost?

Unless of course this tanks the system entirely, but that seems unlikely.

~~~
Taek
Most likely the sum value of each token is not going to be much different from
the pre-split value of the original token. Or if it is, it means that people
on both sides are relieved and optimistic about this technique for conflict
resolution, and really do see it as value added.

If you care about one token over the other, the best thing to do is let the
dust settle, then sell all of your non-preferred token for the preferred
token. Financially, this should not set you back even if you prefer the
minority token - you just end up with a bunch of them, and the total value of
your wallet is still about the same.

------
serg_chernata
This is going to be a failed attempt of starting yet another altcoin. Just
because this carries the "bitcoin" name doesn't make it any more special.

~~~
Taek
It has special meaning to people frustrated with the stubborn refusal from
bitcoin-core to raise the block size. Bitcoin has two major factions, and this
is more or less a peaceful way for them to split out.

I'm hoping it decreases the overall level of conflict, as both groups will be
able to get what they want here.

~~~
thefalcon
The comments here (which overall are measured and reasonable relative to
elsewhere) lead me to believe that this "us vs them" combative mentality will
continue. It seems as long as there are two chains, supporters of one will
still be trying to attack and hope for the demise of the other, even though I
share your hope that the opposite will happen.

------
runeks
Question: according to Coin Dance[1], SegWit will lock in around 14 days from
now. Will the max block size be what the SegWit code says, or the 2MB that
SegWit2x has chosen? There is a majority of nodes running Bitcoin Core, but a
majority of miners that run SegWit2x nodes. So what will happen?

[https://coin.dance/blocks#proposals](https://coin.dance/blocks#proposals)

------
PhrosTT
What do you think the exchanges will do here (aka Coinbase) [Yes I know you
should pull all your BTC off...].

If there is a hard fork, are they just going to wait until the dust settles
and then give people access to both coins? I.E. BCC would magically appear in
your account. Or do they seriously intend to _not_ support one of the chains
and just have all their users holding BTC worth X% less?

~~~
jstanley
> What do you think the exchanges will do here (aka Coinbase)

Here's what they say:
[https://support.coinbase.com/customer/portal/articles/284421...](https://support.coinbase.com/customer/portal/articles/2844217-uahf-
uasf-faq)

Notably:

> Coinbase will not support the new blockchain or its associated coin.

~~~
ue_
Coinfloor however says that they'll support Cash if it gains traction.

------
slashzeppelin
It's the culmination of a years-old debate. Looking at both arguments in a
positive light, Bitcoin Cash wants to stick to the original idealistic vision
of Bitcoin, and is offering a temporary solution for it. Bitcoin wants a
better solution, and is ready to make some ideological compromises in exchange
for growing the chain faster and making it easily usable.

Idealism vs pragmatism.

~~~
placeybordeaux
I don't think there was anything about the "original idealistic" vision of
bitcoin that was explicitly against secure off-chain tx. Rolling back segwit
is shooting yourself in the foot because your enemy told you that it was a bad
idea.

Who would want tx malleability?

------
kbody
Keep in mind, that there's an big amount of propaganda going on in the
comments and a lot of selective arguments floating, so don't take a single
comment for an absolute truth. (including this comment)

One thing is for sure, that there are many dynamics at different levels in
conflict around this situation.

------
zck
So if I have coin on, say, coinbase, what should I do? Should I withdraw it to
a wallet before August 1, so I can access both Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash?

~~~
nicpottier
I would not keep coins sitting in coinbase either way, so the decision is
easy. Move it off. If you aren't planning on selling anytime soon then do it
to a paper wallet or get a Trezor or the like if you want to actually use your
coins.

But don't trust any third party with your coins, especially Coinbase which
isn't sharing the private keys with you.

~~~
CyberDildonics
Absolutely not. Keeping coins on coinbase means on the split you have your
normal balance, but coinbase keeps your bitcoin cash balance.

Take your money out of an exchange, it should not be kept there in the first
place! If you don't own the private keys, you don't own your bitcoin. If it is
on coinbase, you don't control it, you are just asking them for permission.

------
s73ver
Why don't they just go make their own coin? Nobody is going to have confidence
in a currency if the threat of forking is constantly over it's head.

------
kang
Lets keep the blockchain protocol in the mind for a second. Now, given that
bitcoin is born due to some problem with banks that the creator felt, what can
the banks do at best?

They can create a bank that cannot control printing of money by
cryptographically publically proving the held amount and all transactions,
backed by proof-of-work as a proof that they are revoking the rights to change
their own books. How would such a bank look like?

It would look like BitcoinCash(currency)+Viabtc(interface of the
bank)+Bitmain(guards)+this particular dev group(sales) all of them owned by
JihanWu. This is a prelimn form of the ultimate bank of the future. Epitome of
centralised money.

Will it succeed? Well for most people when they are asking this ques they are
asking "will it rise in price?". Well I know there are shit ton of shitcoins
that trade in the market, and this here is something that is the best form of
something historically considered useful vs a group of people who are saying
history was wrong and wanting decentralization but this group feels lost in
this group noise of speculators.

