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Topic: Hearn's Worst Case Scenario: Checkpoints in XT to "ignore the longest chain" - page 2. (Read 5163 times)

hero member
Activity: 672
Merit: 500
I appreciate the fact that they introduced a voting model for the fork. This way it's not going to happen if it's largely opposed. The sad part is that only miners can effectively vote. So what happens if many users support XT without having the necessary hashrate they'd have to own in order to trigger the fork they support? Will the rules to trigger a fork become more flexible? Will they start ignorin the longest blockchain and push for a fork anyway?

None of those two seem realistic to me, the second could be catastrophic for the new and smaller chain.

I like the voting too. We can have some quantitive results from the miners. The community is still split, but I am beginning to see a move towards resolution. The big players are miner, exchanges and dev. Get consensus from all miners first, then gather support from exchanges (where the real value is).

We will have to how the voting goes. If BIP100 have good support, then we will never have to decide between Core and XT.
hero member
Activity: 770
Merit: 509
I was aware on this, the fact they wanted centralized checkpoints and tor ip lists that get block is further proof we are talking about none other than NSA coin in the makings. Avoid like the plague my friends.
legendary
Activity: 2674
Merit: 1082
Legendary Escrow Service - Tip Jar in Profile
Wow. Bitcoin XT is now an altcoin?  Huh

Thats what i wonder too. Why is this thread in Altcoin Discussion. I think it should be moved to Bitcoin Discussion. It doesnt have to do anything with altcoins.

Im not a fan of Bitcoin XT, its not why i write this, the simply risks of "our" coin becoming the coin of a company is not for me. Though i think this discussion should be discussed in the correct place.

Altcoin Discussion is the proper place to discuss XT.  Theymos is very generous to make such an allowance on his private server.

If I were him, XT and Gavinistas would be given the Bitcoin-scrypt treatment (IE disappeared like pinkos in Pinochet's Chile).

The logic is simple enough:

Activating a hardfork based on what miners do is really bad. You could easily have a situation where 75% of miners support XT but none of the big Bitcoin exchanges or businesses do. Then miners would start mining coins that they couldn't spend anywhere useful, and SPV users would find that they can't transact with the businesses they want to deal with. The currency would be split, and in this case XT would be in a far weaker position than Bitcoin.

The possibility of this sort of network/currency split is what makes XT not a "legitimate hardfork", but rather the programmed creation of an altcoin. A consensus hardfork can only go forward once it has been determined that it's nearly impossible for the Bitcoin economy to split in any significant way. Not every Bitcoin user on Earth has to agree, but enough that there won't be a noticeable split.


I know what you mean and i agree to a certain degree. For now i see the chance that bitcoin xt MIGHT become the real bitcoin. I doubt it but the chance is there. Then it would not be correct to discuss bitcoin xt in altcoin. Bitcoin xt should be discussed as bitcoin until it shows that it is an altcoin only. I mean when bitcoin core is forking then it is not the original bitcoin anymore too. And we don't switch to altcoin section then too.

In fact theymos really wanted to do it that way. See my question and his answers:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/why-move-all-threads-regarding-the-fork-to-altcoin-discussion-1090801
legendary
Activity: 2422
Merit: 1451
Leading Crypto Sports Betting & Casino Platform
I appreciate the fact that they introduced a voting model for the fork. This way it's not going to happen if it's largely opposed. The sad part is that only miners can effectively vote. So what happens if many users support XT without having the necessary hashrate they'd have to own in order to trigger the fork they support? Will the rules to trigger a fork become more flexible? Will they start ignorin the longest blockchain and push for a fork anyway?

None of those two seem realistic to me, the second could be catastrophic for the new and smaller chain.
legendary
Activity: 1442
Merit: 1179
but he is not the only person who will read and test the code. lets see what other devs say about that.

I think Hearn is the only person who decides what code is included in XT. I don't even think Gavin Andresen has commit access to XT.

As much as I am against the XT fork, the above is not true. There are several with commit access to XT including:

- Hearn (obviously)
- Gavin Andresen
- Jeff Garzik
- Jonas Schnelli
- Wladimir J Van Der Laan
- Jorge Timon
- Cory Fields
- Suhas Daftuar
- Pieter Wuille

I can go further back, but this should give you an idea. The above people have made a commit to bitcoinXT since May 12th 2015. Since July 2015 the only person making commits has been Hearn.
legendary
Activity: 1876
Merit: 1000

Altcoin Discussion is the proper place to discuss XT.  Theymos is very generous to make such an allowance on his private server.

If I were him, XT and Gavinistas would be given the Bitcoin-scrypt treatment (IE disappeared like pinkos in Pinochet's Chile).


agreed that would be being constant, and this XT alt is way worse as bitcoin scrypt wasn't trying to be bitcoin nor was it an attack on btc.
legendary
Activity: 938
Merit: 1000
LIR DEV
Runnin' my node, doin' my part.
legendary
Activity: 1400
Merit: 1001
So we will have bitcoin 1.0 (Core) and Bitcoin 2.0 (XT) soon. I hope Hearn will realize that this bullshit will hurt bitcoin more than anything before.
It pains me to see that it will be not attack from the outside but instead internal bitcoin war that eventually destroy the dream.
But until then XT is a soft fork of Bitcoin so I think Bitcoin Discussion is a proper place for this kind of thread.
legendary
Activity: 2156
Merit: 1072
Crypto is the separation of Power and State.
Wow. Bitcoin XT is now an altcoin?  Huh

Thats what i wonder too. Why is this thread in Altcoin Discussion. I think it should be moved to Bitcoin Discussion. It doesnt have to do anything with altcoins.

Im not a fan of Bitcoin XT, its not why i write this, the simply risks of "our" coin becoming the coin of a company is not for me. Though i think this discussion should be discussed in the correct place.

Altcoin Discussion is the proper place to discuss XT.  Theymos is very generous to make such an allowance on his private server.

If I were him, XT and Gavinistas would be given the Bitcoin-scrypt treatment (IE disappeared like pinkos in Pinochet's Chile).

The logic is simple enough:

Activating a hardfork based on what miners do is really bad. You could easily have a situation where 75% of miners support XT but none of the big Bitcoin exchanges or businesses do. Then miners would start mining coins that they couldn't spend anywhere useful, and SPV users would find that they can't transact with the businesses they want to deal with. The currency would be split, and in this case XT would be in a far weaker position than Bitcoin.

The possibility of this sort of network/currency split is what makes XT not a "legitimate hardfork", but rather the programmed creation of an altcoin. A consensus hardfork can only go forward once it has been determined that it's nearly impossible for the Bitcoin economy to split in any significant way. Not every Bitcoin user on Earth has to agree, but enough that there won't be a noticeable split.

legendary
Activity: 2156
Merit: 1072
Crypto is the separation of Power and State.
Hearn has a solution for all the Chinese miners stuck on the old chain, they can develop their own Chinese-specific altcoin.  Cheesy

Quote
If that's really the case, it seems to me that Chinese Bitcoin is unsustainable and what you really need is a China-specific alt coin that can run entirely within the Chinese internet.

http://sourceforge.net/p/bitcoin/mailman/message/34162353/

When XT is finished getting #rekt, I'm going to miss Heam.  He's one of the most productive lolcows of all time!

I trust Gavin has collected enough genetic samples to keep the line going if we want more.   Cheesy
sr. member
Activity: 406
Merit: 252
hero member
Activity: 798
Merit: 1000
Move On !!!!!!
Man, this is getting more and more ridiculous! Freaking checkpoints now! I am just waiting to see what will I read next tomorrow when I wake up!
legendary
Activity: 1792
Merit: 1000
I see Theymos has the same XT policy here as he does on r/bitcoin  Roll Eyes
full member
Activity: 136
Merit: 100
Get your filthy fiat off me you damn dirty state.
Wow. Bitcoin XT is now an altcoin?  Huh

Thats what i wonder too. Why is this thread in Altcoin Discussion. I think it should be moved to Bitcoin Discussion. It doesnt have to do anything with altcoins.

Im not a fan of Bitcoin XT, its not why i write this, the simply risks of "our" coin becoming the coin of a company is not for me. Though i think this discussion should be discussed in the correct place.

I originally posted it in Bitcoin Discussion. I guess a mod moved it to Altcoin Discussion. I don't mind though. I laughed when I saw it'd been moved here.
legendary
Activity: 2674
Merit: 1082
Legendary Escrow Service - Tip Jar in Profile
Wow. Bitcoin XT is now an altcoin?  Huh

Thats what i wonder too. Why is this thread in Altcoin Discussion. I think it should be moved to Bitcoin Discussion. It doesnt have to do anything with altcoins.

Im not a fan of Bitcoin XT, its not why i write this, the simply risks of "our" coin becoming the coin of a company is not for me. Though i think this discussion should be discussed in the correct place.
copper member
Activity: 1498
Merit: 1499
No I dont escrow anymore.
Hearn has a solution for all the Chinese miners stuck on the old chain, they can develop their own Chinese-specific altcoin.  Cheesy

Quote
If that's really the case, it seems to me that Chinese Bitcoin is unsustainable and what you really need is a China-specific alt coin that can run entirely within the Chinese internet.

http://sourceforge.net/p/bitcoin/mailman/message/34162353/

Sounds like a bad idea to just cast a big part of the community out, because... uhm well, their internet sucks. Id rather see O(1) block propagation with the increased block size among some other changes. I dont think this problem can be solved by just changing one screw and hope for the best. We need bigger blocks in order for bitcoin to keep growing. We need O(1) propagation to keep miners on board with the bigger blocks. We need elastic blocksize limits to discourage spam blocks as well as a good algorithm to determine blocksize growth. Both is needed to keep a fee market. The substitution will end some day, lets not forget that. We also need pruning to keep non mining nodes cheap. There are possibly other things Im missing, but this is a big step and most current solutions I see are basically kicking the can down the road or forget/ignore part of the network.
jr. member
Activity: 55
Merit: 53
Wow. Bitcoin XT is now an altcoin?  Huh
legendary
Activity: 2282
Merit: 1050
Monero Core Team
I am and have been a very strong supporter of increasing the blocksize limit and making the blocksize limit to increase with time to allow for the growth of Bitcoin; however a hostile chain is not the way to go about this. One can argue for a lower threshold to tigger the fork, say 70% of the hashpower; however this means that the longest chain is still supporting the fork.
legendary
Activity: 1218
Merit: 1003
The more I think about what Mike Hearn is saying in this clip, the more I'm inclined to switch sides. I was basically passively OK with 20MB, but I'm definitely not OK with a Bitcoin with centralized checkpoints. I'll be surprised if a majority of the Bitcoin community is OK with that.

Yep, increase the block size is an obvious yes. Hostile fork to achieve it? Nope. Especially not if any possibility for tragic outcomes for both forks exists at all.

(it also possibly needs some mechanism to smooth the transition to bigger blocks, and/or a target size with incentives to stay on target etc)
A hostile chain will never work.  The main exchange established for carries the value, someone would need to persuade them to adopt the hostile chain to have any real effect.

Miners mine to make money, so they will do what the exchanges do.
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