Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What is a Bitcoin fork?

blog.coinbase.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 119 posts

Re: What is a Bitcoin fork?

#61

Post by netsharc »

cjhanks wrote: post #13
Waterluvian wrote: post #3

That helped but I do not understand the economic compatibility of a fork. How do they not wreak havoc and chaos on that coin's economy? Do I get coins for each of the new coins or do I have to pick? It all feels really risky and that risk feels foisted upon me. Can I cash out before the fork?

I don't either. Fiat currencies don't fork - you can simply exchange one for another. Another close comparison is a traded equity having a 2:1 split, except shareholders technically lose nothing. Another case would be stock dilution - though, I have never heard of a public stock diluting to 50% value... that seems unlikely. If a specific commodity were to suddenly decide it had an unreported surplus on the order of 1…

A lot of European currencies changed to Euro in 2002. A "fork" would've been if e.g. Deutschmarks were still accepted as legal tender, indeed some nostalgia shops/events like a "90's party" would accept this currency, but not the general economy. And indeed Deutschmarks can still be traded to Euros, but at a fixed rate. If a Bitcoin fork had happened and neither currency crashed, you can still trade each other like Dollars to Euros, as long as you can find someone who wants to sell you Dollars (BTC) and be paid in Euros (BTH) or the other way around.

Re: What is a Bitcoin fork?

#62

Post by ricg »

lloeki wrote: post #57
ricg wrote: 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?

For all intents and purposes, from the point of view of each chain, the other does not exists but it merely turns out their past are the same. IOW BTC is B2X (the money, not the unit) before the fork, and each one considers that its own blockchain is the Truth †. So: - from the BTC point of view, there is 1 BTC both before and after the fork - from the B2X point of view, there is 1 B2X both before and after the fork…

So if the exchange price for BTC does not drop by the same amount of the exchange price for B2X, a fork essentially means money (dollars) is generated out of nothing and given to me as the owner of now 2 coins (one of each type)?

Or in the opposite case, a fork could mean I lose money, just because somebody else decided to create fork?

Re: What is a Bitcoin fork?

#63

Post by ricg »

Here's another stupid question: Can anybody start a new fork?

Let's say, I invested in the original Bitcoin. Then somebody who has the marketing resources to build enough interest in a new coin comes along and decides to fork. Because of the hype around the new coin type, enough people are willing to trade it after the fork.

I'm being given the same number of coins of the forked kind and the value of my original coins drops by the difference in value compared to the new coins (or around that).

If I'd rather only invest in the original Bitcoin, I'd have to sell the forked coins immediately and buy the original Bitcoin back just to keep my investment value the same.

If anybody can come along and fork:

That sounds like in the world of stocks, a competitor could come along and decide to split the stocks of MY company from the outside, driving down the price of my stocks (me as the company's owner or investor) and there's nothing I can do about it.

Re: What is a Bitcoin fork?

#64

Post by bringtheaction »

rebuilder wrote: post #16

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

Someone claiming to be a group of miners have said that they are going to go through with the fork.

https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-segwit2x...

https://bitcoin2x.org/

Of course it's entirely possible that this person or group of people is just someone who bought B2X futures and is trying to push the price back up to minimize their losses.

Re: What is a Bitcoin fork?

#65

Post by CydeWeys »

ricg wrote: post #63

Here's another stupid question: Can anybody start a new fork? Let's say, I invested in the original Bitcoin. Then somebody who has the marketing resources to build enough interest in a new coin comes along and decides to fork. Because of the hype around the new coin type, enough people are willing to trade it after the fork. I'm being given the same number of coins of the forked kind and the value of my original coin…

Yes, anyone can start a fork. It's hard to get momentum on it though, as it'll likely just be a shitcoin that no one cares about. Witness what happened with Bitcoin Gold.

So far there's only been one successful hardfork of Bitcoin (Bitcoin Cash) in all its history. Anyone can try, but few succeed.

Re: What is a Bitcoin fork?

#66

Post by cesarb »

prewett wrote: post #60
alexasmyths wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 currenc…

Businesses don't invest in currency, they invest with it. Businesses don't use cash for investments, either. Investing is buying something that will generate returns, and cash cannot generate any return, kind of by definition. Fiat currencies have no intrinsic value, either, but everyone still uses them. But since one has to keep some cash on hand, a stable currency is preferable. The only reason people are investing…

> Investing is buying something that will generate returns, and cash cannot generate any return, kind of by definition.

During the hyperinflation of the 90s, if I bought US dollars and sold them a month later, I could have a return in the double digits. That looks like a good investment.

Re: What is a Bitcoin fork?

#67

Post by eterm »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #27
mlamat wrote: post #5

A bitcoin fork is a political decision on the currency, like the ones central banks make. There are going to be a lot of forks in the future.

> There are going to be a lot of forks in the future. I tend to agree. The problem, then, is what happens after 3 forks? 4? 10? We're going to keep increasing the number of crypto currencies we own and then we figure to figure out who supports what version of the currency we have to figure out how to cash out... The entire idea of a fork sounds like an absolute nightmare. This is why I'm not putting any serious amoun…

Yes, bitcoiners like to say "It's deflationary because the number of bitcoin is fixed" but you can instantly double all bitcoin in existence by forking to two otherwise identical (but incompatible) chains.

Re: What is a Bitcoin fork?

#68

Post by flashmob »

nope96 wrote: post #47
flashmob wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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_...

citing reddit? I'm guessing you'd like to point out the commit history table. Nice.

You might notice that the table (conveniently) starts from 2010, after a good chunk of coins already has been mined. 2011-2012 is when a lot of the new devs came in which is the new generation, but it was getting much more difficult to mine then.

There's also so many problems with git commit history, so let's be honest here, ie. How many commits doesn't tell the whole story.

Hey, btw, my comments are just observations & not meant to criticize, sorry if you think I'm attacking you. I'm pretty positive about bitcoin and I think it's good that it can re-invent itself and find a good niche (the b2b / institutional market could be huge and certainly would see Bitcoin really growing up). The direction that the current team has chosen to lead it to has certainly paid off well. I sincerely wish the project more success in the future!

Re: What is a Bitcoin fork?

#69

Post by kbart »

CydeWeys wrote: post #65
ricg wrote: post #63

Here's another stupid question: Can anybody start a new fork? Let's say, I invested in the original Bitcoin. Then somebody who has the marketing resources to build enough interest in a new coin comes along and decides to fork. Because of the hype around the new coin type, enough people are willing to trade it after the fork. I'm being given the same number of coins of the forked kind and the value of my original coin…

Yes, anyone can start a fork. It's hard to get momentum on it though, as it'll likely just be a shitcoin that no one cares about. Witness what happened with Bitcoin Gold. So far there's only been one successful hardfork of Bitcoin (Bitcoin Cash) in all its history. Anyone can try, but few succeed.

Yes, but it doesn't answer the OP's question. What if government, official bank or other strong entity with virtually unlimited resources starts a fork (something like Ecoin for those who watch Mr. Robot)? I wouldn't call such event improbable.

Re: What is a Bitcoin fork?

#70

Post by stepik777 »

ricg wrote: post #63

Here's another stupid question: Can anybody start a new fork? Let's say, I invested in the original Bitcoin. Then somebody who has the marketing resources to build enough interest in a new coin comes along and decides to fork. Because of the hype around the new coin type, enough people are willing to trade it after the fork. I'm being given the same number of coins of the forked kind and the value of my original coin…

> the value of my original coins drops by the difference in value compared to the new coins (or around that).

Prices of cryptocurrencies are very unstable even without any forks, so what you are describing doesn't make any sense.

Post reply on HN