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What is a Bitcoin fork?

blog.coinbase.com

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Re: What is a Bitcoin fork?

#81

Post by dcminter »

[deleted] wrote: post #78
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.

[deleted]

Not in the sense meant here.

Litecoin is a fork of the Bitcoin core codebase, but its blockchain is not rooted in the Bitcoin blockchain (i.e. Bitcoin owners did not automatically inherit Litecoin at the time of that fork).

Re: What is a Bitcoin fork?

#82

Post by jiggunjer »

tomglynch wrote: post #10
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?

Realistically, the value of the chain pre-fork should equal the value of the two chains post fork. However, this is not always the case - due to people thinking they can get 'free coins' from the other chain (price goes up), people being afraid of a fork (price goes down), etc

Conservation of value. The first law of forkodynamics.

Re: What is a Bitcoin fork?

#83

Post by tertius »

underwoodley wrote: post #80
tertius wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

And why would this translate to something like cryptocurrency?

Re: What is a Bitcoin fork?

#84

Post by Lazare »

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, driving down the price of my stocks (me as the company's owner or investor) and there's nothing I can do about it.

It's more like someone saying to all the shareholders of Apple "hey, you like companies that make mobile phones, and I've started a great mobile phone company, and I think it'd be great if you were a shareholder in my company too, so I've sent you some shares in my company too, I hope you like them!"

Is that a thing you could do? Yes.

Does it benefit you in any way? Probably not. There's certainly no reason to think it increases the value of your company.

Does it hurt Apple in any way? Almost certainly not. I mean, if everyone decided your startup was much cooler than Apple, then it might, but it's hard to see how you mailing strangers shares would bring that about.

A bitcoin fork is, in some ways, a little bit like a stock split or a dividend, but it's a lot more like someone randomly mailing strangers scraps of paper which are almost certainly worthless.

Re: What is a Bitcoin fork?

#85

Post by techno_modus »

So a Bitcoin fork is a kind of a git branch or at least one could think of it so. In this sense, it would be interesting to implement this possibility as a feature. Then everybody could start a new branch using new software branch. What is important, all such forks/branches will share the same parent paths (previous transactions). Essentially, all transactions will be represented as a git-like tree where each branch is managed by the corresponding software version.

Re: What is a Bitcoin fork?

#86

Post by kluck »

Physically a BitCoin is, when you look at it with your own eyes, nothing, not even air. And probably everyone knows what a fork is (metal thingy for eating stuff) ... so here is your answer. Everyone else who says otherwise, is probably employed by Bitcoin ;)

Re: What is a Bitcoin fork?

#87

Post by zodiac »

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?

> How is the price for a coin of a fork determined?

The same way the price of any coin is determined, the market-clearing price on exchanges.

Re: What is a Bitcoin fork?

#89

Post by bpicolo »

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.

> virtually unlimited resources

Having resources doesn't matter, it's a hype-based economy

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