"Please update wallets immediately to avoid losing coins"
I don't understand this part. It's a softfork right?
Are people really losing coins or is it just something to say to make people update?
If that's it, haha pretty creative I guess.
I think it's just hyperbole to get people to update, but maybe miners could get screwed if they don't update?
miners will not be forked off of the network. Segwit uses BIP9 versionbits
Well with wrong code they hard forked their coin the last time.
Everyone had to downgrade.
So I'm asking, is this the Segwit with wrong code & just hardfork because YOLO or is it a cool marketing stunt?
Well after we reach the 75% threshold the new rules will activate and old version blocks will start to be orphaned, so there is a danger of coin loss if you don't upgrade your wallet. This is the release with the correct code.
Softfork means it is backwards compatible with old wallets. So are we hardforking (not compatible with old wallets) instead of softfork now?
Old wallets will continue to sync with the chain and be able to issue transactions but
newly generated blocks coming from old wallets (ie blocks with nVersion 4 or less) will no longer be accepted as valid after activation. This is the same behavior as Bitcoin/Litecoin.
But Bitcoin/Litecoin don't advertise with upgrade now otherwise you will loose coins.
What you are saying in ELI5: It is not mandatory to upgrade but recommended.
Except for the solo miners and pools.
Normal users (non miners) won't be generating new blocks hence they can stay on old wallets. Why do you give them the suggestion that they will loose coins?
The warning is for everybody. Like James said If exchanges,miners, and pools are using old wallets they will continue to sync with the chain and be able to issue transactions
but newly generated blocks coming from old wallets (ie blocks with nVersion 4 or less) will no longer be accepted as valid after activation. This is the same behavior as Bitcoin/Litecoin. In short you could be getting blocks or coins on the old wallet , but if you transfer them to a new wallet they would be rejected, hence how you could loose coins.
Thank you for taking the time to explain. I hear what you are saying but having difficulties to understand.
How come the warning is only for vertcoin users and not for Bitcoin/Litecoin users? Are you saying that if Bitcoin/Litecoin users on old wallet (pre segwit wallet) transfer coins to new wallet (segwit wallet) they could loose coins? I looked it up on
https://bitcoincore.org/en/2016/10/27/segwit-upgrade-guide/ and it says:
Full nodes prevent their users from accepting any blocks that violate any of Bitcoin’s consensus rules. In a soft fork upgrade such as segwit, new rules are added, and any nodes that don’t upgrade won’t know about those new rules. This is not a problem: the segwit soft fork is designed to allow non-upgraded users to continue using Bitcoin the same way they did before the soft fork.
If you don’t want to upgrade to segwit and you aren’t a miner, you may simply continue using your current full node software. Segwit is implemented as a soft fork, so you don’t need to upgrade. You also don’t need to upgrade any wallets that connect to your full node; they will continue working as they did before (see the wallet section below for details).
I don't think the behaviour is the same for Bitcoin/Litecoin.