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What is a Bitcoin fork?

blog.coinbase.com

41–50 of 119 posts

Re: What is a Bitcoin fork?

#41
post #25

Do a little searching on the people pushing the "2x" Fork - Here's one example, CEO of OP's link Coinbase.com: >Coinbase CEO Owns More Ether Than Bitcoin - Coinjournal >Coinbase CEO Armstrong: Ethereum Scaling Better Than Bitcoin Another example, The head coder on the "2x" fork has announced his own coin to ICO soon, > Jeff Garzik, ... has seen its shortcomings firsthand. So he decided to create a better digital curr…

Both Brian & Jeff are still both heavily invested in businesses that rely on Bitcoin, they are not just speculators who simply buy and hold. Their business plans are ruined if Bitcoin fees get too high. Note that 'extremely low fees' was the original selling point of Bitcoin which now has been ruined. So they were simply defending their businesses.

Jeff's business model relies more on ETH than Bitcoin:

"The current launch plan includes launching on Ethereum chain, which will require paying ETH to obtain MTN tokens"

20% pre-mine

price starts at 1.67 ETH per MTN token

Remember Tezos? That raised a quarter of a billion dollars. There is way more money in making an ICO and saying "Bitcoin is broken! You need [new coin]!"

Brian makes money when you convert USD/BTC/ETH into USD/BTC/ETH. They announced they are adding more coins soon.

The main "2x" supporter runs "Grayscale Ethereum Classic Investment Trust" and tries to sell investors on a coin that nobody has ever used for anything ever.

The people who are "all in" on Bitcoin (the developers for example) think the "2x" fork is a terrible terrible idea. The people who are heavily invested in other coins want the "2x" fork to happen.

Re: What is a Bitcoin fork?

#44
post #37

FYI the segwit2x fork this post was probably mainly motivated by appears to have been called off: https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-segwit2x...

Jackson Palmer (Dogecoin founder) talks all about the Bitcoin fork at the last local Hack Days meetup[0]. It's actually a really great talk. [0](Skip to 30m) https://www.facebook.com/hackdays4all/videos/549774142034920...

Do you have a non-fb link?

Re: What is a Bitcoin fork?

#45

This is an interesting paradox because the whole point of the system was that it was decentralized, and once set in motion the rules could not be changed. Or so they can? And who decides? Because these forks can have considerably favourable or negative outcomes for specific stakeholders, it's nary impossible to make the decision 'fairly' and this rather undermines the whole thing, no? And yes, I do understand that 'v…

Saying the rules can be changed is like saying that your eyes changed color if you have a child with different color eyes. A fork is not the same chain as the original.

All of the comments above lead me to understand that basically anything can happen with BTC and this kind of undermines it's value as a 'hard currency'.

The whole point of decentralization was that nobody could control it, and devaluation was based on some algorithm, limited by tech.

If these rules can change, then the intrinsic value of BTC is truly up in the air.

What business would invest in using BTC as a currency knowing such things can arbitrarily happen?

Re: What is a Bitcoin fork?

#46
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both Brian & Jeff are still both heavily invested in businesses that rely on Bitcoin, they are not just speculators who simply buy and hold. Their business plans are ruined if Bitcoin fees get too high. Note that 'extremely low fees' was the original selling point of Bitcoin which now has been ruined. So they were simply defending their businesses.

Jeff's business model relies more on ETH than Bitcoin: "The current launch plan includes launching on Ethereum chain, which will require paying ETH to obtain MTN tokens" 20% pre-mine price starts at 1.67 ETH per MTN token Remember Tezos? That raised a quarter of a billion dollars. There is way more money in making an ICO and saying "Bitcoin is broken! You need [new coin]!" Brian makes money when you convert USD/BTC/E…

Oh, I was referring to bitpay, which probably will not last long unless it pivots into b2b or altcoins.

It's also hard to tell if Bitcoin developers are all in or not. Note that developers can have different interests than holders (eg. The want to get control of the codebase in order to get status and recognition & hopefully future consulting contracts). Note that the current bitcoin devs are mostly a new generation that got later in the game. Source & analysis about this point here http://hackingdistributed.com/2017/08/26/whos-your-crypto-bu...

Re: What is a Bitcoin fork?

#47
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jeff's business model relies more on ETH than Bitcoin: "The current launch plan includes launching on Ethereum chain, which will require paying ETH to obtain MTN tokens" 20% pre-mine price starts at 1.67 ETH per MTN token Remember Tezos? That raised a quarter of a billion dollars. There is way more money in making an ICO and saying "Bitcoin is broken! You need [new coin]!" Brian makes money when you convert USD/BTC/E…

Oh, I was referring to bitpay, which probably will not last long unless it pivots into b2b or altcoins. It's also hard to tell if Bitcoin developers are all in or not. Note that developers can have different interests than holders (eg. The want to get control of the codebase in order to get status and recognition & hopefully future consulting contracts). Note that the current bitcoin devs are mostly a new generation…

> Note that the current bitcoin devs are mostly a new generation that got later in the game.

this is 100% false, see this post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/72lwzv/if_bitcoin_...

Re: What is a Bitcoin fork?

#48
Ok, stupid question: in real dollars, if I sell my ONE coin just before a fork or my then TWO coins right after the fork, will I end up with the same dollar amount?

For that to happen the old coin type would have to lose in price at which the fork starts. How is the price for a coin of a fork determined?

Re: What is a Bitcoin fork?

#49
post #48

Ok, stupid question: in real dollars, if I sell my ONE coin just before a fork or my then TWO coins right after the fork, will I end up with the same dollar amount? For that to happen the old coin type would have to lose in price at which the fork starts. How is the price for a coin of a fork determined?

That's a hard question, based around the market sentiment of the new coin.

In theory, yes, the value is split. The value is only derived from speculation, and the speculative value of the coin 1ms pre-fork must be the same as the value of the two coins 1ms post-fork, since otherwise people would simply buy immediately before the fork, and then sell immediately after, driving the prices to an equilibrium.

In reality, this is what has happened with this fork hype, people were buying w/ the idea of getting a 'free' coin, like how last time the value of Bitcoin + Bitcoin Cash was far higher than the original pre-fork value of Bitcoin. However, this has driven the price up, causing there to be even MORE hype, which will likely see the price of Bitcoin stay high, since it is now "trending up".

Re: What is a Bitcoin fork?

#50
post #48

Ok, stupid question: in real dollars, if I sell my ONE coin just before a fork or my then TWO coins right after the fork, will I end up with the same dollar amount? For that to happen the old coin type would have to lose in price at which the fork starts. How is the price for a coin of a fork determined?

No you wouldn't. The price is determined by the orders that people place on the exchange and those can be anything
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