Topic: Wondering out loud: Which should Chinese miners support - Core, Classic or another? - page 15. (Read 38029 times)

New archived thread backup (in case of censorship):
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EDIT:
Well, that's enough for me today.
Goodnight everybody.

Nobody also wants to be on the minority branch. Gavin just did a great piece about what would happen if the network split 80/20.
Check it out:
http://gavinandresen.ninja/minority-branches (TL;DR: Nothing would really happen)


Let's get on the same page. What actually is your definition of consensus ?

Nope, I read it again - with context and I still think my argument stands.
Please explain your point further because I don't understand what you think I am misunderstanding.

Wait a minute... what exactly is your point ?
Are you trying to say that if 100% users don't agree to change, then the change cannot happen ? Am I getting this right ?

You can do anything and you can even fork Bitcoin in any way you want.
If you can convince the majority of the network that your fork is the best and that giving 1000 BTC to poor children is the right choice and network will install your client then by all means - your client will be considered the "true" Bitcoin, and the previous client will be made obsolete and nobody will use it.
However the probability you could pull something like this is almost equal to zero.

This is basically completely wrong and has no basis in anything. I don't think you understand what a soft fork and hard fork is.
Here is a pretty good explanation:
http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/30817/what-is-a-soft-fork

In short, I would say that hard forks are the ones that split the network in 2 separate ones - old and new - and make a "clean cut", while soft forks "pretend" to all old clients that nothing has changed, so the old clients can keep working (but important: the old clients are not working 100% correctly while not knowing that anything happened).
So basically, hard fork is kind of more open and honest way of doing changes, while soft-fork is more of a "sneaky" way that makes a change and pretends that nothing has happened to the network.

I think I explained it right.

Just an average redditor, wailing and stamping their feet with typical, toddler-esque demands that reflect their principle concept of reality. "CENSORSHIP! is their battle cry, when there are literally hundreds of mediums on the internet to get your voice heard.

People like you make reddit just look stupid.

That's why they are not the same problem....but I am sure you know that.

For SPV clients it is more problematic, actually.  They need to talk to a full node to get information about new transactions and blocks.  Sometimes they will contact a real bitcoin node, other times an altcoin node pretending to be bitcoin.  They will send their transaction to whatever chain the node they are talking to is using.  The transaction may be valid in one chain, and invalid in the other.  The user have no way of knowing.

This is a problem for soft forks as well.  For soft forks we know the miners have upgraded, but the user of an SPV client have no idea if the full node he connect to is upgraded or not.  If it isn't, a transaction which is invalid according to the new rules may be presented to the SPV wallet as valid (but unconfirmed).

I edited my original post, sorry.

Now let's say, the scammer sent a payment to someone, which gets confirmed on the new chain, but the old nodes cannot see the larger blocks, so to them the coins do not move at all, either because the new transaction is included in the 'extra space' part of a 2mb block so it is not included in the old chain due to size limit, or because, well, the only miner left in the world that still mines the old chain is the attacker himself. Now the attacker could take as much time as there is in the world, in theory, to wait for, or mine a new block on the old chain, that includes his transaction which spends these same bitcoins already spent on the main chain, then the buyer/merchant will give him fiats/goods for bitcoins that do not exist on the chain 'at large', because he sees the transaction paying him being confirmed on a block relayed by the old node he connects to,  and he still wouldn't get these coins after upgrading. Makes sense?

No, miners don't matter.  If a miner break consensus, users and merchants won't accept their blocks.  They will just make themselves irrelevant, mining worthless coins.

Nobody wants to have software with critical bugs.  It is quite easy to achieve consensus about that.  I remember the one back in 2010 when someone discovered they could make 184 billion BTC for themselves in the coinbase transaction due to an integer overflow bug.  That one was resolved quickly as well.  In both cases the hard fork was caused by an unintentional bug.  Bitcoin is still i beta.

Irrelevant.  My dictionary still have the same defintition of consensus as it always had.

I don't see how what you think someone else claim is relevant at all here.  (Read again – what he wrote is not what you think he claims.)

Bitcoin is built on some hard rules which cannot change unless all users agree to the change.  As long as some (or in this case most) users don't agree to change the rules, it is impossible.  You can only add new more restrictive rules, not change or remove existing rules.  People who cannot live with the rules as they are, have to use something else.  There are plenty of altcoins to choose from, and it shouldn't be a problem to anyone.

I can never remember bitcoin beeing about what a majority wants.  Bitcoin wasn't designed that way.  Can I run a campaign to make 100 BTC extra for UNICEF?  Just 100 BTC?  That's not much, and I'm sure it will help a lot of children.  I will probably get at least as as many supporters as those who want to change the maximum block size rule.  Perhaps make it 1000 BTC.  Or even more.  It is a good cause.

The only change a majority can do, is to impose new rules, i.e. stricter rules which will be imposed on new blocks.  Blocks adhering to the new rule will still be valid to old nodes, but blocks may have to confirm to an extra rule to be accepted by upgraded nodes.  This is called a soft fork.  Soft forks are typically activated only after 95% of the hashpower enforce the new rules.  Otherwise false confirmations may show up to old nodes whenever an old node mine a block.

1)  If you are a miner, it doesn't matter what language you speak, what food you eat, nor what set of assholes claim to own you and extort you.  

2)  Run whatever code you like.  Don't just git clone some trendy name, you will get burned.  Check changes yourself - no "updates", or you will get burned.  Choose params you like in terms of what TX go into the block.  

3)  Charge people extra to give you their TX directly and put them in the block.  This is the way things are going eventually as TX relaying appears unreliable and unrewarding.  

4)  Pay no attention to "version header codes" or other silliness.  Algorithmic behavior is not represented by anything other than the behavior itself.  Put whatever you like in the open bits of the header.  

5) Thank you for securing the network!  

There have been some recent developments regarding 2mb and Blockstream. I missed the Blockstream information and wanted to include that in the thread as it is something miners should consider. The more interesting read was concerning what would happen in the event of a fork, at least according to g.anderson.

http://gavinandresen.ninja/minority-branches

I found the abovementioned link an interesting read.


https://github.com/bitcoinclassic/bitcoinclassic/releases/tag/classic-0.11.2.b1




https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/42nx74/unmasking_the_blockstream_business_plan/



I think it would be helpful to understand whether liquid, sidechains, associated code created by blockstream is something under open source license or not. I think this could help understand profit motivation behind various actions. I have difficulty seeing them as the demonic monsters people paint them out to be but recognize their are to many red flags to completely disregard.

Well it is not really dangerous. Your money will not be lost.
The worst thing that could happen is you get but scammed but - as I said - it is not so easy a scam to pull.

Well yeah, but what kind of comparison is this ? USD is not a new, dynamically developing technology.
I am sure that after 50 years Bitcoin will also stabilize and become the "boring, old Bitcoin" that everybody knows. But not now, not today.

Well sorry, but if some merchant on the other end of the world is many months behind what is happening in Bitcoin world, then that is seriously his problem.
The technological landscape & Bitcoin landscape are moving & changing extremely fast. You have to keep up just to stay alive. That is kind of normal.


To convince me, you need stronger arguments. The ones you have given are not super-strong and absolute.

Well, you could be correct to some extent. What you say may even be true and might happen, but the probability of that happening is rather low.

Nowehere I said that you have a hidden agenda.

Lately I am becoming better and better at detecting bullshit. I don't see any bullshit in what you are saying. Just average arguments.

Not really just business, say, you are buying bitcoins yourself. In fact, in which case, the smaller the hashrate remains on the old chain, the more dangerous it became for those left behind. The coins would not be lost, they would just have been already spent on the new chain, because old nodes cannot recognize the larger blocks, they would not see that.


A merchant using USD certainly should not be expected to keep up with Fed's monetary policy, waiting for x confirmations is as much due diligence as should be expected from him, when using Bitcoin.

Assuming the information is equally accessible to all corners of the world, this economy is way larger than we think.

But anyway, I know I am not going to convince you, I am just saying not all anti-Classic people have evil agendas, that's all.

If they won't upgrade, the new clients will not even sync with the old relays, because blocks will be seen as invalid by the clients.
If we are talking about SPV clients, which don't see any blocks, then their money will also not be lost. They will regain the control of their money once all of them (relay/processor + client) upgrade. The money will not be lost in (almost ?) any case.

Also, generally when running business it is your goddamn job to make sure that everything is ok. If you don't know that, you should not even start a business.

The grace period is actually much much longer, because the whole situation will be widely known at least few months before that happens. So companies actually have months to change, not weeks.

Well, I think that covers it.

Again, we cannot just speculate and pray.

Also, I think the important point is: let's just not say if your 'grace period' is too short, what if you see 5% of nodes hanging out there and have not upgraded? 15%, 25%? What if they still haven't upgraded after the fork because, well their admins could just go on vacation or something? What would happen to all the SPV clients connecting to them? Are you going to back down in this hypothetical situation?

I don't think we should wilfully allow someone to lose money through none of their own fault, not even one, but from my experience I cannot convince Classic supporters to accept that, but I guess, we can at least agree, that not everyone opposing to the hard fork has an evil agenda, they could just legitimately have moral concerns?

But now everybody will have a lot of time to prepare for such scams.

Also payment processors have insurance, so not so big problem really.

Exactly.

This is why there is a 2-week (or a month - was it ?) "grace period". So, after number of Bitcoin Classic nodes reach 75% it gives few weeks time to everybody to upgrade.

Yes, of course - there will be some problems, perhaps even some people will get scammed. But I don't think it will be much.

All payments processors will surely upgrade in time, so it will be only single rare cases of users that do person-to-person transactions (but scamming this way would only work if the scammer knew that the person has old version of software).

Such scam will not be easy to pull.

Nah, merchants using old full nodes, who would accept transactions on the old chain, would possibly get scammed through no fault of their own.

You cannot just fork and pray that the best will happen, in a security-critical system.

In the 2013 accidental fork, which lasted for 6 hours, someone managed to successfully double spend Okpay, this time an attacker would have months of time ahead to prepare for one.

So relays it is.

I will tell you now how to reach hard-fork "consensus" using relays.

1. Make all relays (or let's assume 75% of relays) upgrade to the Bitcoin Classic
2. The old software that the relays are not using becomes irrelevant
3. Miners, seeing that they are mining using outdated software (and thus are/will be on the wrong chain) quickly upgrade their software to Bitcoin Classic, because otherwise they would lose all profits.
4. Big payment operators, seeing what is happening, also quickly upgrade their software to Bitcoin Classic
All happens within days, if not hours.

5. All the rest of the network (laggards) upgrades to Bitcoin Classic (this may take little longer time)

Boom ! Consensus reached, baby.

Also note that the money left on the old version aren't lost. Users just need to upgrade to use them.

Anyone running a node that retrieves a full copy of blockchain, so all of them except SPV clients.

Are we talking about clients, relays or miners ?

No, network consensus, i.e., almost all the nodes on the network are ready to accept a new version of blocks.