Bitcoin Cash Developers Propose Date for November Hard Fork

The open-source developers behind bitcoin cash appear to be sticking to their word.

Following a pledge in August to change the code as necessary to stay competitive, the developers behind the alternative bitcoin software took a step toward following through this week. In a post yesterday, developers behind one of the bitcoin cash clients revealed they will seek to change the software's rules via a hard fork on Nov. 1.

To be activated on Nov. 13, the new software will seek to adjust rules set in the initial split with the bitcoin blockchain, one that also hints at larger criticisms about bitcoin cash's economic network. In particular, the change will attempt to reverse a piece of code, called the emergency difficulty adjustment (EDA) rule, meant to help bitcoin cash better attract miners willing to secure its blockchain.

As bitcoin and bitcoin cash both use the same mining algorithm, miners operating compatible hardware have shown a willingness to switch between the networks. As such, the idea behind EDA was that mining difficulty could be dynamically adjusted down as necessary to attract miners with profits.

However, while beneficial after the launch, developers believe the rule has outlived its utility to the network.

"This is problematic [now] because it prevents consistently fast confirmations for users, and radically shifts the coin issuance schedule," the post reads.

In its place, a new algorithm would adjust every 600 seconds, based on the amount of computing power that was provided to the network over the previous 144 blocks. The idea is that difficulty would be adjusted quickly, in response to real-time miner activity.

According to the post, members of the development team are now in touch with exchanges, wallets and miners in an attempt to raise awareness for the proposal.

Fork image via Shutterstock

The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.

US Search Mobile Web

Welcome to the Yahoo Search forum! We’d love to hear your ideas on how to improve Yahoo Search.

The Yahoo product feedback forum now requires a valid Yahoo ID and password to participate.

You are now required to sign-in using your Yahoo email account in order to provide us with feedback and to submit votes and comments to existing ideas. If you do not have a Yahoo ID or the password to your Yahoo ID, please sign-up for a new account.

If you have a valid Yahoo ID and password, follow these steps if you would like to remove your posts, comments, votes, and/or profile from the Yahoo product feedback forum.

Vote for an existing idea ( )
or
Post a new idea…

Hot ideas
Top ideas
New ideas
Category
Status
My feedback

Improve your services

Your search engine does not find any satisfactory results for searches. It is too weak. Also, the server of bing is often off

I created a yahoo/email account long ago but I lost access to it; can y'all delete all my yahoo/yahoo account except for my newest YaAccount

I want all my lost access yahoo account 'delete'; Requesting supporter for these old account deletion; 'except' my Newest yahoo account this Account don't delete! Because I don't want it interfering my online 'gamble' /games/business/data/ Activity , because the computer/security program might 'scure' my Information and detect theres other account; then secure online activities/ business securing from my suspicion because of my other account existing will make the security program be 'Suspicious' until I'm 'secure'; and if I'm gambling online 'Depositing' then I need those account 'delete' because the insecurity 'Suspicioun' will program the casino game 'Programs' securities' to be 'secure' then it'll be 'unfair' gaming and I'll lose because of the insecurity can be a 'Excuse'. Hope y'all understand my explanation!

chithidio@Yahoo.com

i dont know what happened but i can not search anything.

Golf handicap tracker, why can't I get to it?

Why do I get redirected on pc and mobile device?

Rahyaftco@yahoo.com

RYAN RAHSAD BELL literally means

Question on a link

In the search for Anaïs Nin, one of the first few links shows a picture of a man. Why? Since Nin is a woman, I can’t figure out why. Can you show some reason for this? Who is he? If you click on the picture a group of pictures of Nin and no mention of that man. Is it an error?

Repair the Yahoo Search App.

Yahoo Search App from the Google Play Store on my Samsung Galaxy S8+ phone stopped working on May 18, 2018.

I went to the Yahoo Troubleshooting page but the article that said to do a certain 8 steps to fix the problem with Yahoo Services not working and how to fix the problem. Of course they didn't work.

I contacted Samsung thru their Samsung Tutor app on my phone. I gave their Technican access to my phone to see if there was a problem with my phone that stopped the Yahoo Search App from working. He went to Yahoo and I signed in so he could try to fix the Yahoo Search App not working. He also used another phone, installed the app from the Google Play Store to see if the app would do any kind of search thru the app. The Yahoo Search App just wasn't working.

I also had At&t try to help me because I have UVERSE for my internet service. My internet was working perfectly. Their Technical Support team member checked the Yahoo Search App and it wouldn't work for him either.

We can go to www.yahoo.com and search for any topic or website. It's just the Yahoo Search App that won't allow anyone to do web searches at all.

I let Google know that the Yahoo Search App installed from their Google Play Store had completely stopped working on May 18, 2018.

I told them that Yahoo has made sure that their Yahoo members can't contact them about anything.

I noticed that right after I accepted the agreement that said Oath had joined with Verizon I started having the problem with the Yahoo Search App.
No matter what I search for or website thru the Yahoo Search App it says the following after I searched for
www.att.com.

WEBPAGE NOT AVAILABLE
This webpage at gttp://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0geJGq8BbkrgALEMMITE5jylu=X3oDMTEzcTjdWsyBGNvbG8DYmyxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDTkFQUEMwxzEEc2VjA3NylRo=10/Ru=https%3a%2f%2fwww.att.att.com%2f/Rk=2/Es=plkGNRAB61_XKqFjTEN7J8cXA-
could not be loaded because:
net::ERR_CLEARTEXT_NOT_PERMITTED

I tried to search for things like www.homedepot.com. The same thing happened. It would say WEBPAGE NOT AVAILABLE. The only thing that changed were all the upper and lower case letters, numbers and symbols.
Then it would again say
could not be loaded because:
net::ERR_CLEARTEXT_NOT_PERMITTED

This is the same thing that happened when Samsung and At&t tried to do any kind of searches thru the Yahoo Search App.

Yahoo needs to fix the problem with their app.

Yahoo Search App from the Google Play Store on my Samsung Galaxy S8+ phone stopped working on May 18, 2018.

I went to the Yahoo Troubleshooting page but the article that said to do a certain 8 steps to fix the problem with Yahoo Services not working and how to fix the problem. Of course they didn't work.

The November 2017 Bitcoin Hard Fork is Huge, But Not Universally Welcomed

More on Blockchain and Bitcoin
What's the Vice Industry Token—A Crypto for Porn?
Governance: Why Crypto Investors Should Care
Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS)
Which FAANG Will Win the Blockchain Wars?

Mark your calendars (in pencil, as this date may change): November 13, 2017. The mother of all hard forks will finally trigger, which will split Bitcoin into two tokens.

Even before cryptocurrencies took off like crazy at the beginning of 2017, different bitcoin developers, miners, and investors were already squaring off to debate the best ways to continue to develop the leading cryptocurrency. (See more: The War Between Segwit vs. BIP148 vs. Bitcoin Unlimited.) One of the biggest questions they faced was how to increase the number of transactions that the blockchain (the technology which supports bitcoin and all other cryptocurrencies) can process per second.

Bitcoin has grown at an astonishing rate, and the interest among investors has largely overloaded the system as it was initially set up. Other cryptocurrencies have found new ways of increasing their transaction capacity. Will bitcoin be able to do the same? It seems that if bitcoin is to grow in this way, it may need to experience a fork in November.

SegWit2x Hard Fork

The process of “hard forking” entails bitcoin being divided into two separate currencies. A hard fork, which may happen around November 13, would happen when the so-called SegWit2x protocol is adopted. According to a report by Forbes, bitcoin protocol developer Matt Corallo explained that the decision to adopt the new protocol (and, therefore, to hard fork the cryptocurrency) was not a discussion at all. In fact, Corallo says the decision to hard fork “was pretty much a declaration,” and this process is “fundamentally incompatible with the process that is bitcoin core.”

What does a bitcoin hard fork mean for the average investor? To begin with, some exchanges are offering what they call chain split tokens. These function as futures markets, of a sort, in which users and investors can take sides about the hard fork. According to Forbes, activity in this area reveals that the “vast majority of community support is against the hard fork.” In fact, across a number of exchanges, the split tokens are trading at about 15% of the current value of bitcoin.

Too Late to Turn Around?

There is some indication that it is too late to stop the hard fork process, even in spite of community opposition. The first part of the plan activated in August, setting the process in motion. (See more: Bitcoin Cash Set To Undergo Hard Fork.)

It’s also possible to view the chain split token activity in a different light. Because the volume in this area is just $2 million per day, it may not be as representative of community perspective as some analysts have suggested.

Bitcoin miners may be more inclined to support the split, with 75% supporting the protocol adoption since last July. Corallo dismissed the notion that miners would end up attacking the minority chain in the event of a split, saying that “you have to take 15% of the hash power globally that you have and attack this chain instead of mining something useful, and if your attack works, all this money you spent on mining these blocks is useless.”

Block 494,784: Segwit2x Developers Set Date for Bitcoin Hard Fork

The developers behind Segwit2x, a controversial plan to increase the transaction capacity of the bitcoin blockchain, plan to announce a firm date for a hard fork today.

A copy of a forthcoming blog post obtained by CoinDesk indicates that the Segwit2x team plans to enable bitcoin's miners to elect to run new software at block 494,784 on the blockchain, a block they expect will occur sometime in November of this year.

The announcement, while not yet public, is expected to be released formally later today. Entitled, "Bitcoin Upgrade at Block 494,784," the draft post is currently live on a website related to the project.

"During the month of November 2017, approximately 90 days after the activation of Segregated Witnesses in the Bitcoin blockchain, a block between 1MB and 2MB in size will be generated by bitcoin miners in a move to increase network capacity. At this point it is expected that more than 90% of the computational capacity that secures the bitcoin network will carry on mining on top of this large block."

If enacted, Segwit2x could enable a second hard fork of the bitcoin network in 2017, one that could also result in the creation of yet another version of the bitcoin blockchain with its own unique cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin Cash, created through a hard fork on August 1, is currently trading at just over $300.

Announced in May, Segwit2x is an agreement supported by more than 50 industry startups, miners and technologists and organized by industry investor Digital Currency Group. To date, its developer team has drawn support mainly from industry startups.

Still with a portion of bitcoin's mining network backing the new bitcoin cash blockchain, it remains to be seen just how many miners on either chain would dedicate computing power to yet another blockchain.

For one, there is already a live version of the blockchain that supports larger blocks. Secondly, with the adoption of SegWit on the bitcoin blockchain, its proponents argue block size is no longer an effective metric for capacity.

Disclaimer: CoinDesk is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which helped organized the Segwit2x agreement.

Bitcoin's Big Test: November Fork

Bitcoin has a hard-fork coming up on November 16th.

There was a fork in August that boosted BTC's price; this one is different.

Even with confusion and two different coins, BTC should follow the same pattern and we'll see price increases after November 16.

Just about everyone has an opinion on Bitcoin’s price ($50,000?), inherent value (“digital gold” anyone?), or implementation these days. We have our prediction ($8,000 Bitcoin by year’s end)—and we’ve been right about these calls already.

But no one knows the future with any absolute certainty, and Bitcoin’s blockchain technology means it can elude even the finest of technical analysis.

Well, there are such thing in cryptocurrency as “forks,” and Bitcoin is going to have one—another one—in mid-November.

Let’s look over some basics on what forks are and the information we have on this one, and then we’ll talk about it means as an investor (both pre and post the fork date).

That date is November 16 , and the “fork” means the blockchain that powers Bitcoin will be split into two, each holding the history of all previous ledger activity (I suggest going here for a primer on blockchain).

The split will take Bitcoin (as it’s known now) and a new chain which many are calling “2x” or “S2x” or even “Segwit2x,” which refers to seg-wit, an update to the blockchain that changes the way information is sent. That piece may not seem like a big deal, but the change is profound enough to double the size of each “block” within Bitcoin’s blockchain. Many see this as a solution enabling Bitcoin to scale—to take on more transactions per second and to do it at a lower cost.

Groups within the Bitcoin ecosystem—are there are separate groups like miners, developers, investors, exchanges—actually sort of struck a deal in New York in May on implementing this change (called the New York Agreement), but some have since dropped out.

There are more details to be found about this—particularly this Forbes article—each which can explain the technological aspects of this. The piece that’s most pertinent to this discussion is that many exchanges, because of the unknowns here, is going to be offering customers that hold Bitcoin the same amount in S2X coins, meaning Bitcoin owners will own both chains, for at least some time. Important also is that this has all already happened, most notably in August, with the creation of Bitcoin Cash (BCH), which forked off of Bitcoin. Investors knew this was coming at that point, but no one knew how to value BCH.

One factor that was used for Bitcoin Cash was the futures crypto market (which is perhaps not established enough to truly be taken as a token sign). BCH followed its futures price quite closely at the time of the original fork. S2X futures are currently trading around $2,500, while Bitcoin hangs around $6,000.

So what an investor needs to know as this point is that a split is coming, and after the split there will be an urgent and serious need to establish which is going to be the “main” Bitcoin that processes the millions of transactions every day and works toward the kind of economical penetration that sustains its $100 billion market cap.

One doomsday scenario is that neither chain can become the consensus chain, and the value of each plummets. That’s a possibility, but with so much at stake, it doesn’t seem likely. Each group that’s represented here simply has too much to lose to fight an ideological war when millions, if not billions, are on the table to lose. Miners, investors, companies (exchanges) will all lean toward what’s in their self-interests, whether it represents the best long-term technical solution for Bitocin or not. This also means it’s worth keeping an eye on altcoins like Dash, Ripple, or Litecoin, because they each fill in a place Bitcoin’s technology might fail to evolve into.

People in the crypto world are split about whether these forks are a good thing or not. Some point out the confusion in how these play out with average users and investors—confusion in both the technical aspects and how to care for their money. It leads many to simply drop out of the marketplace. Others, like Bob Summerwill, chief blockchain developer at Sweetbridge, say that forks give communities the opportunity to evolve as needed. It’s just the sort of peaceful governance that can lead a decentralized currency to regulate itself.

But, again, this scenario is unlikely. So what is going to happen? We don’t know for sure, but I think a few things will likely take place.

Bitcoin’s price will rise steadily until November 16 , and dramatically right before. Since the chains are being copied, it’s an offer for what some might perceive to be "free money." This happened in August right before the Bitcoin Cash fork. Bitcoin saw its price move up nearly 10% the week before the fork, and over 20% in the first week immediately following it.

Bitcoin Cash, on the other hand, in the weeks after the fork, was volatile. It nearly tripled in price from its inception date, only to sort of fizzle out.

I doubt this November fork will see its forked-off chain survive, however. Once exchanges see that one chain is dominating (and sort of claiming the title of the “real” Bticoin, since it's going to be used) the other chain’s value will plummet fast and furiously, and there will be little to no value in a sea of sellers.

But I do think we’ll see repeated pattern wherein a price spike occurs immediately following the settling of this fork. The reason is simple: It survived. It came out of a conflict without a central institution, and various stakeholders and lived on another day. For the hardcore fans of decentralizing, a fork is an opportunity to shine rather than mull away.

The second reason—building upon the first—is the rest of the crypto market. While Bitcoin has a 57% “dominance” in total market cap of the whole market, there are still major technologies emerging. If Bitcoin makes it through the fork cleanly, you’ll have an entire class of non-crypto investors seeing its success at moving forward and thinking about getting in. If it should fail, the rest of these coins will fight to fill the gap Bitcoin left behind.

There’s too much interest in other blockchain applications and tokens (over $70 billion of market cap) to have Bitcoin’s upgrade be a bubble-burster. Instead, a void left by Bitcoin’s fumbling can be filled with DASH, for instance, already with a market cap near where Bitcoin was after 7 years of existence.

Why do altcoins matter for Bitcoin value? Because Bitcoin is still by and far the dominant “on-ramp” to get into altcoins and buy them. Save for a few dozen, most exchanges only allow you to get these coins by exchanging Bitcoin itself.

The counterpoint here is that the core to Bitcoin aren’t likely to let this happen either. Because Bitcoin is so dominating, we can expect a peace offering to be made and had before its dominance over the world it created would fall exceptionally.

The short of it is this: There’s too much at stake within Bitcoin and outside of it —in crypto— for this to make a significant setback. And Bitcoin has risen to $6,000 with this date looming since May, so there’s no reason to think it’ll have a majorly negative impact now. Instead, it’ll be a short-term confusion that once cleared, will mean more people flock to Bitcoin, either to hold it as it grows in price or to use it to exchange for other emerging blockchain and cryptographic tokens.

Disclosure: I am/we are long BITCOIN.

I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Predicting the outcome of the November bitcoin fork

By Ryan X. Charles

November 6, 2017

On approximately November 18, Bitcoin will split into two chains: Segwit1x and Segwit2x. Because these chains share the same proof-of-work function (PoW) and neither change the difficulty adjustment algorithm (DAA), it is unlikely that both will survive simultaneously.

A complicating factor is the existence of Bitcoin Cash, a fork of Bitcoin which shares the same PoW but has in addition an improved DAA that ensures it can adjust downward in difficulty rapidly as needed in the event of miner evacuation, keeping its block interval at approximately 10 minutes on average. Bitcoin Cash cannot die, but Segwit1x and Segwit2x can both die.

These are the possible scenarios that may unfold starting November 18:

Scenario 1: The Flippening

Bitcoin Cash becomes the dominant chain measured by total PoW, Segwit1x survives with an “emergency hard fork” to a new PoW function or DAA, and Segwit2x dies.

This scenario is widely ignored or ridiculed in the Bitcoin community which is why the current price of Bitcoin is more than ten times the price of Bitcoin Cash. However, this scenario is actually the most likely due to the spectacular gains to be made by miners, speculators and businesses who game this scenario. Anyone who is in a position to cause the flippening can increase their money 10-fold in a month, followed by far higher long-term gains due to the ability of Bitcoin Cash to scale to a global audience.

If this scenario plays out, it will probably happen as follows:

Whales will buy Bitcoin Cash cheap and sell Bitcoin at its all-time highs in preparation for the flippening. Then by leveraging huge amounts of capital, whales will push the price of Bitcoin Cash up and the price of Bitcoin down at approximately the same time as the split between Segwit1x and Segwit2x.
Miners will now be incentivized to switch from Segwit1x/Segwit2x to Bitcoin Cash due to improved profitability, while Segwit1x and Segwit2x both struggle on suddenly far lower mining power. Miners themselves may also be whales and will deliberately cause the incentives to shift for their own double gain.
Segwit2x dies to due no ability to change the PoW or DAA (since that’s not a part of the New York Agreement (NYA)).
Segwit1x changes its PoW and survives as an altcoin branded as “Bitcoin”. Many in the Segwit1x community are already comfortable with this possibility, and more certainly will be if all of their value is threatened with destruction otherwise.

Over some period of time, Bitcoin Cash achieves status as the longest chain as measured by total PoW and some exchanges and businesses now regard it as being “Bitcoin”.

Scenario 2: Segwit2x wins

Segwit2x becomes the dominant chain measured by total PoW, Segwit1x changes its PoW, and Bitcoin Cash survives.

This is the second most likely scenario due to the fact that a vast majority of miners and a majority of businesses have committed to Segwit2x as part of the NYA. However, this scenario is strictly less likely than the above due to the lesser gains to be made. No one can multiply their value by 10-fold in a short period of time in this scenario. And the long-term future is likely to continue to have infighting, high fees, and loss of market share to altcoins – it’s better for business if Bitcoin Cash wins.

Note that, even if Segwit1x has a higher price on exchanges at the time of the fork, that does not help Segwit1x much if miners stick to their agreement and continue to mine Segwit2x. See Vinny Lingham’s theory about how the minority chain cannot have a higher value.

In this scenario, similar to the above, it is most likely Segwit1x will change its PoW and become an altcoin in order to ensure its chain survives.

Scenario 3: Segwit1x wins

Segwit1x becomes the dominant chain measured by total PoW, Segwit2x dies, and Bitcoin Cash survives.

If the movement from the Segwit1x community is successful, Segwit2x will be prevented from occurring due to the community uprising. This scenario is less likely than the above two scenarios due to the lack of commitment from miners to mine the Segwit1x chain. Segwit1x will probably not survive on

10% of mining power due to excessively long block times for several months. Trolling on social media is not a substitute for mining power.

In this scenario, Segwit2x completely dies as no parties in the NYA agreed to change the PoW function or DAA in order to allow it to survive.

This scenario can be encouraged by whales. If whales specifically desire to make Segwit1x the dominant chain, they can buy Segwit1x. If they are able to sustain a high price of Segwit1x due to a flood of capital that lasts beyond any insecurity, the miners are incentivized to switch back over from Segwit2x. However, this requires vastly more capital than the scenario in which Bitcoin Cash wins because the market cap of Bitcoin is more than 10 times that of Bitcoin Cash. Rational whales who actually want Bitcoin to succeed would prefer the Bitcoin Cash scenario.

Other Near-Term Scenarios

There are other scenarios that are logically possible, such as the co-existence of Segwit1x and Segwit2x with no further hard forks, but they are unlikely. I believe one of the above three scenarios will almost certainly be the scenario that plays out in November.

Long-Term Scenarios

Note that if Bitcoin Cash does not achieve majority mining power and total accumulated PoW, the situation will continue to be unstable past the November 18 fork. Over the long-term, Bitcoin Cash can both achieve a larger user-base than Segwit1x/Segwit2x and, because it has a better DAA, it can’t die, and will therefore continue to be a thorn in the side of Bitcoin until it ultimately acquires majority mining support and becomes labeled “Bitcoin”.

However, things could easily change long-term to affect these probabilities. For instance, if Bitcoin changes its DAA to be similar to Bitcoin Cash, then Bitcoin Cash’s advantage will go away and the mining dominance of Bitcoin will continue.

Behind the pay wall you will find information about how I am personally allocating my funds in this situation.

Bitcoin Cash Community Preps Hard Fork Slated for November 13

Over the past few weeks, the discussion regarding fixing the Difficulty Adjustment Algorithm for the Bitcoin Cash network has been a very hot topic. Now according to sources, the protocol’s developers are in the midst of planning a hard fork slated for November 13, 2017.

Several Proposals Developed, Coded, and Tested

According to Juan Garavaglia of the organization Bitprim.org, bitcoin cash (BCC) developers are currently planning a “smooth hard fork” for November 13. News.Bitcoin.com spoke with Garavaglia briefly about the subject, and he says that developers Amaury Séchet, Tom Harding, and Neil Booth have submitted proposals. Further, Garavaglia is in the midst of testing a variety of “Difficulty Adjustment Algorithms” (DAA). At the moment the current DAA isn’t operating so well for the BCC network.

“The Bitcoin Cash DAA has served its original purpose quite well, but now the side effects are hurting Bitcoin Cash,” explains Garavaglia.

Several proposals have been developed, coded, and tested. There has been a lot of discussion in developer groups. My team is now testing the best proposals, and there is consensus that the Bitcoin Cash network will receive an upgrade .

Bitprim.org’s Juan Garavaglia.

Bitcoin ABC’s Next Release

Garavaglia details that the fork discussion has been talked about for quite some time, and the timing doesn’t really have anything to do with the approaching Segwit2x fork. “It was always assumed things would be fixed around this time, but really one thing has little to do with the other,” says Garavaglia.

“Solutions have already been coded and tested — It will be fixed in the next release of Bitcoin ABC, hopefully in the next several days,” Garavaglia adds. “This will allow businesses a few weeks time to upgrade their nodes — At the moment we’re running real nodes and real hashrate on a testnet, using Bitcoin ABC binaries with the modified DAA algo.”

We are removing and adding extreme amounts of hashpower (such as 95%) and then we observe how the difficulty actually adjusts with the new code. In addition, the individual developers of the new algorithms have performed their own simulations and there are comparisons being run for different scenarios.

‘Everything Does Much Better Than the Current Bitcoin Cash DAA’

Forum discussions across the BCC community seem to favor the DAA upgrade announcement. Most BCC proponents were already onboard with fixing the protocol’s difficulty algorithm, as many individuals profusely expressed the DAA fix was a priority. In fact, Garavaglia says all of the current trial algorithms are better than the current version.

“So far, everything does much better than the current DAA, and the “turbo blocks” problem is less severe and corrects faster than before — We’re looking forward to continuing our testing during the next several days which will enable Bitcoin ABC to publish their new software version with increased confidence,” Garavaglia concludes.

What do you think about the Bitcoin Cash network preparing to hard fork on November 13? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Images via Shutterstock, the Future of Bitcoin, and Bitcoincash.org

Do you agree with us that Bitcoin is the best invention since sliced bread? Thought so. That’s why we are building this online universe revolving around anything and everything Bitcoin. We have a forum, a casino, a mining pool, and real-time price statistics.

Bitcoin Software Wars: Discussions Heat Up as November Hard Fork Approaches

September is almost over, and the Segwit2x plan to hard fork the network’s block size to 2MB is approaching quickly. Because time is running out the topic is once again heating up, as some New York Agreement (NYA) signatories have removed themselves from the list, with arguments between users and industry members continuing to escalate.

Latin American Bitcoin Peer-to-Peer Loan Platform Wayniloans Leaves the New York Agreement

News.Bitcoin.com recently reported on the mining organization F2 Pool announcing its intention to stop supporting Segwit2x’s hard fork this coming November. On September 19 the bitcoin peer-to-peer lending platform, Wayniloans says the business is also walking away from the NYA compromise. The company’s co-founder, Juan Salviolo revealed the announcement via the Segwit2x development mailing list.

“On Wayniloans part or our business is achieved thanks to bitcoin, and in May we agreed to a sentence to reach consensus for the good of the ecosystem,” explains Salviolo. “This sentence was later changed to a longer agreement without our notice, and it was known as the New York Agreement (NYA). At the time we didn’t know that existing developers wouldn’t support it, or that most Latin American bitcoin users, our customers, would view it as a contentious proposal.”

Also, without mandatory replay protection (not opt-in) on Segwit2x, we wouldn’t be able to operate the crypto part of our business without the risk of missing funds or legal actions.

Erik Voorhees: “The Segwit2x Upgrade Will Have Consensus”

Replay protection has been a contentious subject concerning the development of Segwit2x and has caused numerous arguments. R eplay attack protection ensures a malicious actor cannot replay the transaction on one chain and fraudulently claim coins on the other chain. Just recently, a post on r/bitcoin has revealed a bitcoin user who was upset with Erik Voorhees for “not honoring his commitment, to ensure all hard forks are safe by adding replay protection.”

According to the author, Voorhees blocked him on Twitter, however, the Shapeshift founder disagrees with his perspective. Voorhees says he understands that a lot of r/bitcoin subscribers do not like Segwit2x, but a great majority of businesses and miners do support the plan.

“If the hashpower and the biggest wallet providers stay the course, as they have indicated, then the hardfork in November will have overwhelming support,” Voorhees details . “Unless you want to say “consensus” means “universal agreement,” this Segwit2x upgrade will have consensus. (And nothing has “universal agreement” except the blockchain itself… because of the miners).”

Several thousand angry /r/bitcoin subscribers do not dictate bitcoin, but this sub has become such an echo-chamber, such a den of group-think that those here have utterly convinced themselves they represent “the community” — There are many pieces of the community, and a huge portion is proceeding with the Segwit2x upgrade.

Jeff Garzik: ‘The Plan Remains the Same’

The Segwit2x plan for November is still happening as the working group’s lead developer, Jeff Garzik, revealed on September 18, “The plan remains the same.” According to statistics from Coin Dance, Segwit2x support is still 93 percent, at the time of writing, as far as hash power is concerned. So far only a couple of businesses like Bitwala and Wayniloans have backed away from the Segwit2x agreement, and F2 Pool’s blocks still say ‘NYA’ in the mining pool’s coinbase data .

What do you think about the prospects of the Segwit2x hard fork happening this November? Let us know in the comments below.

Images via Shutterstock, Pixabay, and Wayniloans Twitter account.

Bitcoin Games is a provably fair gaming site with 99% or better expected returns. Try it out here .

Bitcoin Cash: Hard Fork Planned for Better EDA on Nov 13

October 30, 2017 21:45 by Christoph Bergmann

While the price of Bitcoin Cash was on the rise over the weekend, plans were consolidated to repair the broken difficulty adjustment with a hard fork on November 13. If the cryptocurrency aims to be taken seriously, this is needed badly.

On the weekend the price of Bitcoin Cash jumped from $320 to more than $460, or from 0.054 to 0.071 BTC. The massive rise was orchestrated by the growing likelihood of the SegWit2x hard fork to fail and the idea of Bitcoin.com that Bitcoin Cash is the real Bitcoin.

All of this ignores that the difficulty algorithm of Bitcoin Cash is terribly broken. To understand why, we need to reach back a bit; Bitcoin adjusts the difficulty of mining for each sequence of 2016 blocks – which is about every two weeks – so that a new block is generated every ten minutes. So far, so good.

However, if two coins have the same mining algorithm, they compete for the same hash power. This has terrible implications for the weaker, and usually, cheaper coin; while the miners migrate to the more profitable coin, the difficulty remains the same for 2016 blocks, and the network needs more and more time to add new blocks. The blockchain freezes, and, as a final consequence, completely grind to a halt.

Bitcoin Cash Survived but Paid a High Price

To protect Bitcoin Cash against the risk of dying by chain stagnation, the developers implemented a so-called EDA – an Emergency Difficulty Adjustment. Whenever the miners have needed more than 12 hours to find six blocks, mining difficulty is reduced by 20 percent.

The EDA has been successful in helping Bitcoin Cash to survive as a minority chain of Bitcoin’s SHA 256 mining algorithm. However, it was a complete failure to stabilize the block intervals. Since the birth of Bitcoin Cash on August 1, there is a constant switch between periods of ice ages, in which only one block is found in some hours, and periods of rapid block productions, which are induced by a series of EDAs. These adjustments drastically reduce difficulty and result in up to 90 blocks per hour. As an unwanted side effect, the Bitcoin Cash blockchain has added nearly 8,000 blocks more than the Bitcoin blockchain, increasing the production of monetary units by 100,000. Hence, Bitcoin Cash has a significantly higher inflation schedule than Bitcoin.

A Hard Fork to Fix the EDA

To fix this disaster, the Bitcoin Cash developers have planned to do another hard fork on November 13 to change the difficulty algorithm. At the time of writing, they have not decided which proposal will be implemented. There are proposals from Tom Zander (Bitcoin Classic), Amaury Séchet (Bitcoin ABC), Neil Booth (Bitcoin Unlimited), and Tom Harding (Bitcoin XT), representing each team involved in Bitcoin Cash’s development.

The concrete proposals consist mostly of mathematical formulas. Their goal is to reach a stable block interval of 600 seconds, which is flexibly adjusted to hash rate fluctuations, but not too complex to be understood by SPV wallets. The basic problem is to find a good tradeoff between flexibility and stability. Detailed explanations of the proposals of Amaury Séchet, Neil Booth, and Tom Harding are available. Simulations conducted with different software developed by Tom Zander, Tom Harding, and Neil Booth have also been presented. They indicate that Tom Harding’s proposal provides the best results, combining the flexibility of Séchets proposal and the stability of Booth’s algorithm.

The same conclusion found the developer Scott Roberts. He already worked with flexible difficulty algorithms of altcoins and was asked by Tom Harding (Degnr8) to examine his proposal. Roberts wanted to explain that the world’s best flexible difficulty algorithm is an adjusted version of Digishield v3 – but realized that Harding’s algorithm is even better. “Degnr8 has struck gold. I hope all the devs will agree ‘this is it.’”

After being tested by nChain and BitPrim, Bitcoin ABC decided to implement Séchet’s proposal. “We acknowledge that D601 (proposal from Amaury Sechet) may not necessarily have the highest performance, but since all three had similar performance, D601 was selected because it appears to have the least risk.” The software implementing the new algorithm is planned to be released on November 1, 2017.

If Bitcoin Cash succeeds with this – if the developers manage to implement a working flexible new difficulty adjustment algorithm in November – the currency has good chances to benefit from the chaos and disruption induced by a failed SegWit2x hard fork.

Ethereum Classic’s Upcoming Fork to Lower Block Time, Increase Mining Difficulty

TRON Founder, Justin Sun, Looks To Buy BitTorrent Inc.

Russia’s Largest Bank to Test Issuance of State-backed ICO in 2018

Security Vulnerabilities Found in the EOS Blockchain: Mainnet Launch Could be Delayed

DISCLAIMER: BTCManager.com is not a financial project and does not provide any investment services or represent anyone's interests other than its own. For basic information on this website we put our own knowledge about online payment methods, practical skills and years of experience. BTCManager website is offered to wide range of readers as a daily digest that focuses on issues and modern solutions in the practical application the main cryptocurrency and its derivatives. Among our main objectives is to popularize the use of cryptocurrency, explanation what cryptocurrencies are and how they play the role of payment instrument and means for safe storing and earnings, as well as providing the necessary knowledge, educational articles, information about upcoming events and conferences dedicated to the development of cryptocurrency. BTC Manager is not responsible for any results of your using the information from our website.

90 Long Acre, Covent Garden, London WC2E 9RZ, United Kingdom

Bitcoin Price Hits New Record After November Fork Is Called Off

A contentious bitcoin hard fork scheduled for next Thursday has been called off. In response to the news, the price for bitcoin rose to a record new high of $7,848 at 17:32 UTC. At 18:42 UTC, the cryptocurrency was trading at $7,133.09, almost unchanged from its price 24 hours ago. (See also: Bitcoin Price Is Up Again And Could Go Higher.)

Segwit2x, as the hard fork was popularly known, would have increased the block size in a bitcoin blockchain by 1MB to 2MB. That would have increased the number and speed of transactions through the bitcoin network, enabling it to compete with mainstream payment processing companies. (See also: Could Amazon Be Getting Into Cryptocurrencies?)

But core developers of the bitcoin community objected to the change, as it would have diluted the original vision of a decentralized network outlined by Satoshi Nakamoto, the cryptocurrency’s founder. In recent days, prominent members of the community threw their support behind the original bitcoin network. Some reports even described the November hard fork debate as a battle for bitcoin’s soul.

In a post published this morning, Mike Belshe, the CEO of blockchain security company BitGo, also referred to the bitcoin community as reason for cancelling the hard fork.

“Although we strongly believe in the need for a larger blocksize, there is something we believe is even more important: keeping the community together," Belshe wrote. "Unfortunately, it is clear that we have not built sufficient consensus for a clean blocksize upgrade at this time. Continuing on the current path could divide the community and be a setback to Bitcoin’s growth. This was never the goal of Segwit2x." (See also: The November Fork Is Huge, But Not Universally Welcomed.)

An August fork in the cryptocurrency, which created Bitcoin Cash, resulted in a price surge. Analysts had also predicted a similar short-term increase in bitcoin prices after the November fork. Not surprisingly, investors and traders had been moving funds into bitcoin to profit off the event. However, the dramatic spike in bitcoin’s price this morning was followed by a subsequent decline.

Still, the currency is trading 2.52% higher as compared to its price 24 hours ago. With the exception of Bitcoin Cash (which fell almost 5%), other cryptocurrencies listed in the top 10 most traded cryptocurrencies are all up. The total market cap for cryptocurrencies is down by almost $2 billion from this morning. At 19:08 UTC, the market was worth $203 billion.

четверг, 7 июня 2018 г.

bitcoin_fork_november