Hey guys, just listened to mechanic’s last video. Im struggling. I feel like I would leave with Bip110 hard fork on principles as well. If I have all my Bitcoin in cold storage, would I still get a copy of each coin?
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Yes, you would have the keys to both coins. BTW, a hard fork would no longer be BIP-110, but I get what you are saying. Personally, I will not be following a hard fork (which means I’ll probably go separate ways with most of the people I like). IMO, Bitcoin’s network effects are far too strong for a hard for to have any chance of succeeding (and there are a couple of other well-principled coins like Kaspa and Monero which would have first mover advantage over such a new coin even if the original Bitcoin were to collapse in the future).
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what does it mean not to follow the hard fork? Can you please elaborate? I am under the impression that if there is a hard fork, there will be two chains, one with the BIP110 set of restrictions and another with out, essentially Bitcoin core. In such a scenario, are you saying that you will be accepting core version of bitcoin? Please correct me if I am miss understanding this. thanks
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I mean I will not run a hard fork node, will not mine it, will not encourage people to adopt it, and will not call it Bitcoin.
maybe you can look at it like, if the hashrate does not end up coming to bip110 then the current version of bitcoin has too much momentum and network effects to be overcome by some other coin that splits off from it, even if we think the coin that splits off has better rules and leaders.
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Hi Paul I have thought long and hard on this and I am with you on this. At 72 I dont have the runway left to rebuild. My life savings are in BTC and any chance of my daughter having an inheritance. I cant afford to go down with the ship. As soon as we know where we stand can you let me know the procedure for signalling for the surviving implementation? Presumably a version of knots?
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In this scenario, we are agreeing with the minors, that Bitcoin can also be used for file storage. Right?
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dont worry, your bitcoin is safe. Most people are not going to sell their bitcoin and keep the coins on the bip110 side. What will happen is people will just keep both and that is exactly what you can do
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i personally will keep both coins and see what happens. I have faith in the original coins in the short term but I have faith in the other one for the long term as bitcoin slowly degrades from spam, grifters and centralization. Thats all assuming that there is a permanent hardfork which there might not be
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Not exactly. There’s a difference between agreeing that something is desirable and acknowledging the realities that you hate.
Probably not the best analogy, but suppose you strongly support a proposed town ordinance banning billboards. You campaign for it and vote for it, but in the end the ordinance fails. If you continue living in the town afterward, that doesn’t mean you now agree that billboards are good or that the town ought to be covered in them. It simply means you accept that the proposed rule change didn’t achieve enough support from the right corrupt officials to become the rules. You have three options at this point:
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You can stay to continue fighting against advertisers defacing your town, even if the odds are against you, because this is your home, and you are not going anywhere.
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You can pack up and move to another exising town where billboards are prohibited.
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You can organize with your family, friends, and neighbors to establish a new town where billboards are prohibited, and the corrupt incentives that lead to them in the first place are addressed.
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I respect your position. Im with mechanic on that. I don’t hold anybody’s choice against them if it comes to that situation. Which I hope it doesn’t.
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Right, it would no longer be bip110 because they will have changed the sha256 hashing algorithm correct?
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Yes, plus some other things to make it work, like manual difficulty adjustment down to a good starting value and replay protection. These are new consensus rules not in BIP-110, which are needed for a hard fork to succeed.
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Indeed the only option in this case is option 3.
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if the hardfork happens whats funny is is that for us bip110ers we have a kind of prisoners dilemma against us the same way the miners do now. If I knew a very large portion were going to sell their bitcoin and keep the forked coin then I probably would too but I cant be certain so I probably wont.
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It’s a very interesting situation, hopefully the soft fork occurs and we continue on one chain. What comes after that will also be interesting, I don’t believe BIP-110 was written without some idea of what comes next.
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BIP-110 live monitor BIP110 Situation Monitor: Live
In my 60’s and looking at drawing on resources for retirement, I too have contemplated this more than just a bit. I like the idea of continuing the fight. While I understand the sentiment regarding a captured network, I think there are other ways to effect a change for the better. I’ve mentioned elsewhere that making a way for a third archive option where individual nodes could store only transaction information that conforms to their policy requirements in addition to consensus rules, and storing only the hash of the information with a flag indicating the condition, might be an acceptable compromise. Either through a BIP and/or an alternate implementation. I think that it might actually have a good chance of driving the worst of the content to extinction, at least for the content that is contiguous within the non-monetary data spaces.
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Yes, I have an idea for creating a new type of node that uses zero-knowledge proofs to filter out (and not require for bootstrapping a new node of this type) any content that is determined to be illegal or questionable. It would still function as a full node (it just wouldn’t be able to boostrap a classical node). If BIP-110 doesn’t succeed, I’ll be posting more about this. There are definitely still ways to continue the fight, in my opinion.
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I think this ultimately comes down to what Bitcoin means to you.
Broadly speaking, there are three types of Bitcoiners:
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Those who see Bitcoin as a revolution that could one day replace fiat.
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Those who treat Bitcoin mainly as a speculative asset and a way to get ahead in the fiat system.
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Those who believe in Bitcoin but are more pragmatic or pessimistic about its ability to replace fiat, so they use it mainly as protection against the silent taxation of inflation.
If you are in camp one, following the BIP-110 chain is the only acceptable option. From that perspective, a fork would confirm that the Core chain has become centralized and is effectively controlled by regulated companies and, by extension, governments and entrenched interests.
If you are in camp two, none of that matters very much. You will follow whichever chain has the majority of the hashrate and the greatest market value.
If you are in camp three, you may be disappointed that a fork reveals Bitcoin to be more centralized and captured than you believed. But because we still live in a fiat society, you will probably also follow the chain with the greatest hashrate and liquidity.
In practice, camps two and three end up in the same place. Camp one is the only group willing to put everything on the line to preserve Bitcoin as they believe it was intended to be.
What makes this especially interesting is that Bitcoin became what it is today largely because of cypherpunks who belonged to camp one. One could therefore argue that the BIP-110 chain might eventually become the true Bitcoin, while the Core chain, without that uncompromising group behind it, gradually devolves into just another cryptocurrency.
That process could take years or even a decade, but I do not think it is impossible.
That is my perspective, at least. I consider myself part of camp one, although I recognize that I have the luxury of time and have not placed all my eggs in this one basket.
Personally, I find the possibility of a fork exciting. It could purge some of the unnecessary baggage and entrenched interests that have accumulated around Bitcoin. It could also create an opportunity to mine the new chain without immediately competing against today’s highly centralized mining pools. That possibility is genuinely exciting to me.
Realistically, however, I suspect hostile actors aligned with the Core chain would try to undermine the BIP-110 chain if it split and gained meaningful traction, perhaps anything above 10% of total hashrate.
For that reason, I believe a proof-of-work change would eventually be necessary. I am very interested to see what that change might look like.
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