Forked block chain - page 2. | Bitcointalksearch.org

Stephen Gornick

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Quote from: wingding on April 17, 2013, 02:05:55 PM

So the question is if there is anything that stops me from doing that since I am branching off the original chain.

When you go off on your own fork you can do whatever you want, including changing the rules for the block reward subsidy. But again, that only exists on your own fork. It doesn't matter if you start with your own genesis block or extend off of a bitcoin block.

You would want to configure a node to relay transactions received on port 8333 so that they also get relayed to your fork. Some of those transactions will be valid even on your fork but over time more and more transactions that are valid Bitcoin transactions will not confirm on your fork because they include an invalid INPUT as far as your fork is concerned.

The real risk is someone using a copy of their Bitcoin wallet.dat (or the private keys from that wallet.dat) with your fork -- the coins pre-fork are still valid spends on the Bitcoin blockchain as well as on your fork. So it would be way to easy to lose money by accidentally sending valuable pre-fork coins thinking they are only as valuable as the post-fork coins.

Ya, that would get ugly in a hurry.

TierNolan

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Quote from: wingding on April 17, 2013, 02:05:55 PM

I guess my 'new' network can adjust difficulty to maintain similar block rate as for btc. However most important, I want different rules for block rewards, constant reward, not halving each 4 year. So the question is if there is anything that stops me from doing that since I am branching off the original chain.

You could fork the chain by updating a checkpoint in the source code. You need to mine one block and then set that block's hash as a checkpoint. You then need to update the reward function in the code (wherever it is), and remove the decaying reward rule. One problem you could have is that there is a max money constant somewhere, set to 21 million.

marra

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Quote from: wingding on April 17, 2013, 02:05:55 PM

Quote from: Stephen Gornick on April 17, 2013, 01:48:13 PM

Quote from: wingding on April 17, 2013, 01:38:13 PM

If I want to grow a new private branch of the blockchain, can I do that and change the rules for block rewards? (with a rewritten client) If this has been discussed previously I'd be thankful to know.

Are you asking about a hard fork that lets all existing bitcoins be spent on nodes running your rewritten client? Yes, that's possible. But blocks mined by your clients would not be accepted by any peer nodes running the Bitcoin-Qt/bitcoind client.

If you wanted to communicate among other peers who want to be on the fork with you then you could change the port number, set up your own dnsseed server and have your own little forked chains, sure. Knock yourself out ... if you have 400 Ghash/s (equivalent to nearly 7 Avalon ASICs) you'll get one block mined per day, so nearly a week for a transaction to reach six confirmations. [Though you could edit this revised client to have it manually reset difficulty as-of a certain block]

I guess my 'new' network can adjust difficulty to maintain similar block rate as for btc. However most important, I want different rules for block rewards, constant reward, not halving each 4 year. So the question is if there is anything that stops me from doing that since I am branching off the original chain.

if you try to do that the correct term would be as if you dropped the fork on the floor...

2_Thumbs_Up

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I've always thought of this for a way to start an alt-coin. The fact that all bitcoin holders automatically becomes alt-coin owners could give it som traction. Or it would just give people some free fraction of bitcoins as they trade their alt-coin for bitcoins as soon as the first exchange opens.

You would have to change the algorithm to find blocks though or you will be vulnerable to a 51% attack from the bitcoin mining pools.

wingding

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Quote from: Stephen Gornick on April 17, 2013, 01:48:13 PM

Quote from: wingding on April 17, 2013, 01:38:13 PM

If I want to grow a new private branch of the blockchain, can I do that and change the rules for block rewards? (with a rewritten client) If this has been discussed previously I'd be thankful to know.

Are you asking about a hard fork that lets all existing bitcoins be spent on nodes running your rewritten client? Yes, that's possible. But blocks mined by your clients would not be accepted by any peer nodes running the Bitcoin-Qt/bitcoind client.

If you wanted to communicate among other peers who want to be on the fork with you then you could change the port number, set up your own dnsseed server and have your own little forked chains, sure. Knock yourself out ... if you have 400 Ghash/s (equivalent to nearly 7 Avalon ASICs) you'll get one block mined per day, so nearly a week for a transaction to reach six confirmations. [Though you could edit this revised client to have it manually reset difficulty as-of a certain block]

I guess my 'new' network can adjust difficulty to maintain similar block rate as for btc. However most important, I want different rules for block rewards, constant reward, not halving each 4 year. So the question is if there is anything that stops me from doing that since I am branching off the original chain.

Stephen Gornick

legendary

Activity: 2506

Merit: 1010

Quote from: wingding on April 17, 2013, 01:38:13 PM

If I want to grow a new private branch of the blockchain, can I do that and change the rules for block rewards? (with a rewritten client) If this has been discussed previously I'd be thankful to know.

Are you asking about a hard fork that lets all existing bitcoins be spent on nodes running your rewritten client? Yes, that's possible. But blocks mined by your clients would not be accepted by any peer nodes running the Bitcoin-Qt/bitcoind client.

If you wanted to communicate among other peers who want to be on the fork with you then you could change the port number, set up your own dnsseed server and have your own little forked chain running, sure. Knock yourself out ... if you have 400 Ghash/s (equivalent to nearly 7 Avalon ASICs) you'll get one block mined per day, so nearly a week for a transaction to reach six confirmations. [Though you could edit this revised client to have it manually reset difficulty as-of a certain block]

wingding

hero member

Activity: 770

Merit: 504

If I want to grow a new private branch of the blockchain, can I do that and change the rules for block rewards? (with a rewritten client) If this has been discussed previously I'd be thankful to know.

Topic: Forked block chain - page 2. (Read 2254 times)