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What is a Bitcoin fork?

blog.coinbase.com

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Re: What is a Bitcoin fork?

#71

Post by corobo »

ricg wrote: post #62
lloeki wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

In fairness you could also lose money because it's Bitcoin and its value is all over the place, fork or no fork

Re: What is a Bitcoin fork?

#72

Post by veli_joza »

zodiac wrote: post #56
arianvanp wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could I trade with that btc on both forks at the same time?

Think about it using my definition of fork, the answer should be clear

I wouldn't use expression 'protocol upgrade', that implies it's mandatory and that current protocol is rendered obsolete. I think 'fork' better explains the mechanics.

Re: What is a Bitcoin fork?

#73

Post by kang »

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 its coming.

When this goldrush started exchanges were the ones who made money so everyone wanted one.

Then came altcoins ...

Then ERC20 /ICOs...

Next up in 2018 - forks...

Re: What is a Bitcoin fork?

#74

Post by underwoodley »

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…

> 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

That's not really a good analogy. Suppose someone decided to offer one of their securities (or pay a dividend, or give some 'thing') to everyone who has one of your company's shares. All investors have to do is show a share certificate, and get a one-off gift proportional to how many they own.

If the new thing has value, your company's shares should all go up in value by roughly its value. Then shares which have already had the thing claimed, should go down by the same amount, leaving them roughly where they were before. If you decide not to claim the thing, you lose out by its value, but your original shares are still the same and you shouldn't have made a loss on them, just as a result of this split.

Of course, if the new thing is something which competes with your company, your company's shares might go down in response. But this isn't directly related to the value of a share in the new thing.

Re: What is a Bitcoin fork?

#76

Post by beefield »

kbart wrote: post #69
CydeWeys wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I strongly assume that a strong entity would prefer to create a new coin from scratch instead of donating huge amounts of value to existing bitcoin owners.

Re: What is a Bitcoin fork?

#77

Post by pdpi »

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…

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

Not a stupid question at all. The answer is: sure, anybody can start a new fork.

From a philosophical point of view, the alternative is that only a few designated somebodies can fork, which goes against the design goal of a having a fully decentralised network with no privileged nodes.

You can also see this as a distributed systems problem. A fork is just a divergence in the consensus layer. These happen all the time as short-lived forks when different miners produce different blocks with different sets of transactions. Typically, one of those forks gets abandoned immediately — only occasionally do you see a second block mined on the losing branch. In this sense, and from a technical perspective, the only thing that's special about the Segwit2X fork was planned for the coming weeks is that it would also change the consensus rules (by enabling larger blocks, up to 2MB from the current 1MB). Because the consensus rules change is a highly politicised issue, there's a distinct probability that whichever side ended up losing would decide to continue building on their own chain anyhow, thus effectively breaking the currency into two.

Re: What is a Bitcoin fork?

#78

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: What is a Bitcoin fork?

#79

Post by tertius »

underwoodley wrote: post #74
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…

> 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 That's not really a good analogy. Suppose someone decided to offer one of their securities (or pay a dividend, or give some 'thing') to everyone who has one of your company's shares. All investors have to do is show a share certificate, and get a one-off gift proportional to how many…

> If the new thing has value, your company's shares should all go up in value by roughly its value.

Should.

Re: What is a Bitcoin fork?

#80

Post by underwoodley »

tertius wrote: post #79
underwoodley wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 That's not really a good analogy. Suppose someone decided to offer one of their securities (or pay a dividend, or give some 'thing') to everyone who has one of your company's shares. All investors have to do is show a share certificate, and get a one-off gift proportional to how many…

> If the new thing has value, your company's shares should all go up in value by roughly its value. Should .

Yes, that's the word "should", which I used.
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