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Topic: Advice needed: Post-split, how might I best manage coins on separate chains? (Read 327 times)

administrator
Activity: 5222
Merit: 13032
You need to run a full node of every single possible fork to access your coins.

That's not true.
legendary
Activity: 1358
Merit: 1014
Thank you both for your responses. In short, I guess I don't have anything left to do now - except perhaps try the suggestion of downloading and running Bitcoin Core (sorry for overestimating the complexity of that!) and try understand the post on tainting. If Bitcoin Core can automate that process then perhaps it is worthwhile using - at least for a time being.

It is still at least two weeks away anyway so there is time to wait for such a post-fork guide. Thank you in advance for that!



You need to run a full node of every single possible fork to access your coins. Everything else doesn't cut it.
So in short:

Run a Bitcoin Core full node to access the legacy chain coins.
Run a BIP148 full node to access the the 148 chain coins.
Run a segwit2x full node to access the segwit2x chain coins...

etc

This sucks and it's a pain in the ass. You can thank everyone involved in the hardfork for that.
legendary
Activity: 2968
Merit: 3684
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Thank you both for your responses. In short, I guess I don't have anything left to do now - except perhaps try the suggestion of downloading and running Bitcoin Core (sorry for overestimating the complexity of that!) and try understand the post on tainting. If Bitcoin Core can automate that process then perhaps it is worthwhile using - at least for a time being.

It is still at least two weeks away anyway so there is time to wait for such a post-fork guide. Thank you in advance for that!

staff
Activity: 3458
Merit: 6793
Just writing some code
1. I will likely stick to using my coins on current chain. I expect that my wallet of choice (Electrum) will allow me to do this.
Yes, Electrum will allow you to choose the chain that you want to use. You can do this by choosing the Electrum server which you connect to.

3. I will end up using one wallet with coins on new chain and another with coins on original chain.
Yes. You will need two separate wallets and instances of your wallet software.

4. I do not feel I am technically competent enough to download the entire chain to tweak with or run a full node (and as am still a casual user, have no desire to be).
Running a full node is extremely simple; just download, install, and run Bitcoin Core.

Are my assumptions safe enough?
Yes.

Splitting the coins will be a bit complicated. If such a bad split actually happens, someone (maybe me) will write a detailed guide on how to do it.
I will be writing up detailed instructions for that and either adding it to the Bitcoin.org alert or making a post here with those instructions. I have written the basic idea of the tainting method here: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.20104865. This method is also automatically done by Bitcoin Core since it will include a locktime of the most recent block when a transaction is created (with some randomness that allows for a locktime to be chosen that is up to 100 block behind). So long as the minority fork is more than 100 blocks behind and the transaction pays a high enough transaction fee, then this method with locktimes will work.
administrator
Activity: 5222
Merit: 13032
Splitting the coins will be a bit complicated. If such a bad split actually happens, someone (maybe me) will write a detailed guide on how to do it. You can't just do what you're describing there and give one copy of your wallet to wallet software on one chain and one copy of your wallet to wallet software on the other, because any transaction you make from one chain will often still be valid on the other chain. So if there are two chains BTC-X and BTC-Y and you use your BTC-X wallet to send 1 coin to an exchange, your transaction will end up on both chains, and so you'll actually send both 1 BTC-X and 1 BTC-Y simultaneously to the exchange (even though the exchange might only credit you for one of them...). You have to create a special transaction that cleanly splits your coins before you can actually use them separately. (One way of splitting is to taint the coins in one of your wallets with a small amount of money generated post-split.)

Bottom-line: Don't try splitting your coins until someone trustworthy makes a good guide. And don't trust any websites to do it for you, since many scam sites claiming to split coins will probably quickly appear.
legendary
Activity: 2968
Merit: 3684
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Thank you to theymos and achow101, whose posts I've found most helpful re possible/impending split. I understand how to and will be in control of my BTC before August. Is there more clarification on how we will be able to manage coins on separate chains?

1. I will likely stick to using my coins on current chain. I expect that my wallet of choice (Electrum) will allow me to do this.
2. I understand if Electrum won't allow me to do this, I will have to find a wallet that does, and just sweep private keys to that new wallet.
3. I will end up using one wallet with coins on new chain and another with coins on original chain.
4. I do not feel I am technically competent enough to download the entire chain to tweak with or run a full node (and as am still a casual user, have no desire to be).

Are my assumptions safe enough? Or will I need to prepare a bit better? Is there already a relatively simple solution (possibly a wallet) that has already prepared for this that I might examine?
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