Topic: SegWit (26.8%) vs Bitcoin Unlimited (32.2%) - page 9. (Read 8430 times)

If there is a hard fork the exchanges and online services have already spoken and said there will be both Bitcoin (BTC or XBT) and Bitcoin Unlimited (BTU or XBU) like they handled the Ethereum split.

It might also be that miners support BU to the height to make sure that segwit doesn't get activated, but don't want BU either.  Miners make most profits with small blocks and no segwit: they sell block chain room.  That may, in the long run, become the most valuable commodity, not bitcoin's coins.

Bitcoin is about disruption and momentum and its free and censorship resistant.

Blockstream money is disrupted by BU, the free unlimited version of bitcoin.

The momentum is at BU side.

Miners might collude and switch with that momentum.

whoever takes over that I think if it helps the problem and a better future for bitcoin is not a problem for me

To be honest, I'm fairly convinced to just go with whatever the majority of miners are supporting at the time, because this block size debate has been going on for too long and either solution is going to result in Bitcoin being scalable whether we like the exact mechanics or not.

QED..

Why would that be the case ?  If it forks, we have two coins.  There are already more than 700 other coins out there.  What happens, of course, is that bitcoin then loses its "first mover advantage" and becomes "just another crypto currency".

You don't seem to understand that it is not a matter of choice, morality, principles, legality, legitimity or whatever.  We don't have any choice, because there is a DYNAMICAL SYSTEM that decides upon choice: the immutability mechanism.   And that system will decide to remain as it is.  So the only way to do something different, is to make an altcoin.  By forking or whatever.  Not because that would be "right" or "wrong", or "moral", or "just" or .... but because it is dynamically IMPOSSIBLE to do something else.  By the very mechanism that bitcoin was designed to develop: immutability.

The only way to break immutability is by centralisation.  

When I talk about the "original protocol", I don't talk about a historical protocol for which no block chain is actually running today. I'm talking about the "original one" as the CURRENT one.  Any "old" protocol is dead, because no live chain is running it.

Sorry, but the original protocol had no blocksize limit at all, there was just 32 MB memory limit for message in the software, thus blocks. BU and Classic follows this logic, and thus argument for anything over 1 MB = altcoin is pretty weak.

but the original bitcoin did have 32MB limit, by your logic we should be there now not a 1MB, satoshi was all for the right change, i said that 1MB was done momentally to avoid ddos attack, it was not a solution, and why we should now remain at 1MB?

If Bitcoin forks into 2 chains.. it's over..

If CORE (95% of ALL the fixes/changes/updates) leaves Bitcoin development.. it's over.. All respect to BU, but they are simply not at the level required yet..

No idea how this will all turn out.. BUT Bitcoin is NOT un-destroyable. Nothing is. Dangerous times..

Yes I ment that, but I actually think I misunderstood something. Thank you.
But still I guess we will not reach consensus as we stick to the 25% since months already. And with BU we will have the fork...

No, because a segwit block is still a good normal block.   Because segwit is a soft fork.  Every segwit block is accepted by an old node.  Otherwise it is not a soft fork.  So as a non-segwit node, you cannot decide whether a given block is a non-segwit block.  Because segwit blocks are also OK.

You could, indeed, implement ANOTHER soft fork, a non-compatible with segwit, true.  Is that what you mean ?

If segwit will be used the other blocks would be orphaned with the software, thats true. But I bet at that time there will already be a software out, that fixes that and makes another altcoin with them like ETC did. So there is actually not really a difference. There will be 2 chains in either the way...
If people get crazy we maybe even have 3 chains. Classic, BU, and Segwit...

The main point is, it will always be a "double" amount of bitcoins with the fork. I suggest to think about different possibilities(https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.18124177)

No, this is not true.  You only have no say with Segwit.  If 51% of the miners implement segwit, all of them have to follow or get orphaned, and there will be only one chain.  Whether your node supports segwit or not, only one single chain will be produced.  No choice.  Only miner majority.  Core is nice to not activate before 95%, but they don't have to.  51% is enough.

However, with BU, you have a choice.  BU being a HARD fork, (but backward compatible), it can make a NEW CHAIN forking off the normal bitcoin chain if it has 51% mining hash rate or more (if it has less, it will, being backward compatible, always be orphaned as it makes invalid blocks for the majority, but the standard chain is accepted by BU miners, which is the longest one).

So if BU goes beyond 51%, it makes a new chain WITH A NEW COIN, call it butcoin.  Former bitcoin holders now hold their former stash of bitcoin, and a new, equal stash of butcoin.  Bitcoin has forked.  If exchanges include this butcoin, people can exchange butcoin for bitcoin and vice versa.  The market cap of bitcoin will split over bitcoin and butcoin.  If butcoin's market cap remains over 51% of the total, miners will stay in the majority with butcoin.  We now have two coins: the original bitcoin, and an altcoin, butcoin.

However, if ever people sell off their butcoin for more bitcoin, and the market cap of butcoin drops, miners will move back to bitcoin (lower difficulty, higher market price).  If now, butcoin becomes minority, a major clusterfuck happens.

Indeed, more miners on bitcoin means that sooner or later, the total PoW in the bitcoin chain will overtake the total PoW in the butcoin branch.  From that moment on, butcoin miners will now accept the bitcoin chain as the valid chain, and mine on it (just to get orphaned each time by the majority: bitcoin's protocol being more severe, it is as if the former bitcoin protocol is a soft fork of butcoin so the majority wins).  It is only if they implement a full hard fork that makes the bitcoin chain incompatible with the butcoin chain that the butcoin chain will not undergo this major orphaning.

But with a BU split, the market cap will decide, and as long as the market cap of butcoin is larger than bitcoin's, it will stay alive next to bitcoin.  And if BU becomes fully incompatible with bitcoin, it will be an entirely different coin.

We don't have a say. If 51% miners decide to change to a software with a different protocol the original chain will be changed. The 95% was just implemented in the segwit software. And BU has implemented 75% as far as I know...

I cannot see how a important change like this can be done without 95% consensus... I see people are saying that consensus can be reached at a

50%+ consensus for BU? { Please explain, because I am missing that point } ... I just love the fact that it is not easy to change important code in

the protocol, otherwise miners would have dominated these decisions... we still have a say. 

I know that its hard, but I think it can work like this:
- You make a proposal for 2.0
- You ask major payment processors and exchanges, if they support it. They have to implement in advance and sign a contract, that they will stop support for 1.0 after some time
- You invite the major stakeholders (vinclevoss, roger ver, major exchanges) to a consensus party where everyone has to click on the button so that most of the coins are moved...

I mean its a change of a protocol. Its hard but not impossible...

I fully agree with you, except that 1. is now also important: it determines the fee market.


However, you proposition is not going to be accepted, because the second coin (obtained by burning bitcoins) will not be seen as bitcoin, but as an altcoin, and the first chain (true bitcoin) will keep on living.  Nobody is going to burn a real bitcoin to obtain an altcoin.

I think any kind of change of the current protocol would mess up the payment systems. Doesn't matter what.
We all committed to 2 major bitcoin laws:
1. The protocol was said to be 1MB per block. Period!
2. There are only 21 Million Bitcoins. Period!

While the first one may be discussable and unimportant for the majority (I talk about users not miners!) the second one is severe.
We will never reach 100% consensus with any kind change. NEVER! That means, we will have a forked chain for sure.
And if there was a fork, we would automatically have 2 chains, with a maximum of 21 million EACH!
That means, we more or less DOUBLE the amount. Yes I know, its not a double actually, but the majority of investors don't understand that and will just think bitcoin was hacked. Consumers just don't understand that! "Which one is the right one now?"'s will be everywhere ...

We have similar problems with ETH already. The fork harmed ETH a lot. And this was although people invested in ETH are probably a lot more technical understanding already than the ones invested in Bitcoin.
If we fork bitcoin the trolling will be gigantic!

Keeping that in mind I have only one "solution" for Bitcoin as "unique Bitcoin":
We have to create a second chain (BITCOIN 2.0), where Bitcoin can MOVED to by burning it from the original chain. Only this way the number of bitcoins stays the same. Consumers will move their coins, if there is an easy way and everyone accepts the new protocol. Laggers can easily be forced by stopping support of 1.0 payments...
We can enhance the protocol in any consensus way (of course here is a lot of work hidden) and anyone can decide to move. Decision is only made by stakeholders not by miners.

There are only a few more or less acceptable problems (at least more acceptable than to double the coins):
- new and old coins are not fungible (new ones can not be converted to old ones any more)
- the bitcoin generation on the old chain will still go on. Thats why there should not be any coin generation on the new one, because that would increase the amount. For the new chain is probably only a POS/POI consensus acceptable. (I will not go into a discussion about POW against POS here. Let's just say, that with PoW we will run into a mess again)
- as a result the old chain will sooner or later just run for generating bitcoins that can be transferred. Transactions will not generate fees for miners any more so the chain will run out, if there can be generated any bitcoins any more.
- The payment providers have to implement 2.0 in advance in order for any change.