Hope I don’t offend others by bringing this topic here but after trying to learn about Bitcoin, Blockchain and all, I’m looking to hardfork Bitcoin, not just for fun but for actual use.
I’ve been approached by a few people that I know in the industry if they can use Bitcoin as payments, but looking into it no one really wants to sell them. Providing a fork will help existing Bitcoin holders have a use of a coin for utility purpose.
Why Bitcoin? It’s all about the name here, though ripple is the other here… I’ve already got a few things going but would love to build a community to grow a sustainable ecosystem. Would love to work with developers, miners, app developers, marketers and other contributors for this to happen.
Why do you want to hard fork bitcoin? If the coin holders today don’t want to sell (which isn’t the case btw) then how would this be resolved with a hard fork?
What is the value proposition of the hard fork? What improvements are you proposing to do to the bitcoin blockchain that would justify doing a hard fork? And, obviously, have you proposed these improvements to the bitcoin core team?
Hard forks need to have a reason to exist, if you’re not adding value by doing a hard fork then all they do is disrupt the space and add more insecurity into the market. Bitcoin has had 2 forks already, neither one adding much value (IMHO), so why would anyone agree to a third one?
If this has to do with payments, why not simply look at Nano for example? It is fast, transaction fee free and readily available to deal with payments. If you look at their subreddit you’ll notice more and more companies willing to accept them as a valid means of payment and transactions in Nano (Raiblocks / block lattice) are as close to instant as you can get with their new wallet.
It’s exactly the reason for a hardfork, for every Bitcoin holder will get the forked coin for utility purposes. Basically one would hold BTC and get to use the forked one, not just dump it - some adoption needed for this.
The core team has it’s views or interpretation of Satoshi’s vision. I’m not arguing with them on the matter, but there’re tests out there on reduced block intervals, block size, and so on. But core seems to stick with the current version and rather implement lightning, which I understand is a scaling solution but has both ups and downs. Just that a downside is that not all transactions are recorded. I believe a hardfork will not only enable a diversified means of exploration to the crypto-economy.
The market is all speculation right now except for Bitcoin IMO. By making a hardforked coin available for actual use seems like a value proposition for us crypto holders or holders. Is it a mere cure to the symptoms or the disease itself? I’m also willing to know, maybe there’s a cure down the road like NANO as you mentioned. I mentioned Bitcoin since it’s a word people are most familiar with, if I approach a coffee shop and say I’m going to pay with “Nano” vs. “Bitcoin XXX”, that in itself has some sort of expectations - willing to accept payment. Which is why I think a hardfork can be a stepping stone if done right.
But a simple fork will result in exactly the same. If you fork Bitcoin but don’t change anything to the core code then you simply have a carbon copy of bitcoin with all the flaws that come with it. I.e. your hard fork needs to have a solid value proposition for it to exist, otherwise it’ll simply not get any traction nor adoption and die out before it even started.
So my original question stays the same: What is the value proposition of the hard fork? What improvements are you proposing to do to the bitcoin blockchain that would justify doing a hard fork?
Bitcoin is absolute speculation, no different from any other coin, it has just been around much longer, is the founding implementation of blockchain technology and has had hardcore supporters for years that enabled it to exist.
Reducing the block intervals means that more bitcoin would flood the market faster, I.e. the price would go down, not up. Bitcoin has sustained itself due to the limited supply and the ever shrinking supply; mining interest would disappear in a heartbeat if there was an increased supply.
Increasing the blocksize is really not a solution. You can’t increase the blockside beyond 4MB in any event (technical limitation) and it does virtually nothing towards scalability; 4x more transactions / second is still only 12-28 transactions per second in a system where you still need to wait 6 blocks deep (1 hour) to ensure safety of transactions.
IOTA claims to be able to handle 1,500 (haven’t seen proof), Ethereum does about 15 TPS, Litecoin handles 56 TPS and Nano claims 1,500 TPS (of which I’ve seen proof of a peak of 306 TPS in production stress tests, with total 5,000 transactions in 47 seconds). All of them manage transactions within seconds.
I’m not arguing against a BTC hard fork at all, I think without dramatic improvements Bitcoin will make itself obsolete in the long term, but it is still a question of what the value proposition of that hard fork will be, what changes will be made to the code to address all of the above?
If it is about increasing speed, lowering transaction costs, reduced to zero mining costs, etc. All are valid but all are already done by blockchains like the block lattice (Nano) which has transactions clearing in less than 3 seconds, zero transaction fees and no mining (other than what you do on your own transaction which has no carbon impact and no cost impact).
Hard forking to me would just be a dilution. Reduce value. I think this was ultimately what drove Roger Ver to develop Bcash. So you have that already.
Just use Nano oe even Bcash as the others have suggested. There are many other coins with faster and cheaper transactions. Problem is that security is not as tight and in the case of Nano the double spending prevention is very centralized. The trouble with these other currencies is that they are good ideas but don’t work flawlessly yet.
As a reliable and immutable transfer system; Bitcoin is flawlesss.
If you need more speed or cheaper then it would make sense to keep this successful, tested, genius protocol and build a second layer on top. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathtub!
Yes and no, it is flawless only if you use the 6 blocks deep rule, which isn’t exactly immediate. You cannot trust a bitcoin transaction immediately, while usually it will be OK you expose yourself to a lot of double spending risk doing so.
Also keep in mind that Bitcoin has now been going for 8 years, whereas Nano (for example) has only been around for maybe 6 months, all solutions need time to mature.
I’m not questioning the genius that is the blockchain and its bitcoin protocol, but building a second layer on top of it will not address any of the issues I’ve listed before. It requires a dramatic change to the core technology.
It seems you agree that the bitcoin system gives the most immutability and then confuse the issue by talking about speed and age,
Let me be clear.
Bitcoin is the most successful tried and tested protocol for immutable transfer that we have.
Speed, cost, scaling and other issues that myself and many others have can be addressed on a 2nd layer.
This is may not be the most beautiful way to develop the space but it is the safest.
When we find more succinct (reliable and tested) solutions to bitcoin’s shortcomings there is the option to incorporate them later to the core code.
I personally love the Nano idea and tech. but it is has a long way to go and no guarantees that it will get there! I invested fairly early (shortly after the iota pump) but when problems started showing, I felt that the core team were not addressing them and therefore lost faith in the project.
Personally I’m more interested in the tech than the coins, when I first saw The Tangle (IOTA) I was becoming a fan until I dug deeper and realised how easy it is to outpace the network, how easy it is to create a parasite chain, the MIT security issue and the team’s lack of response to that, the public fight with Vitalik, the wallet issues and finally the interview with Ivan convinced me to stay far away from this technology.
I have seen how Nano has addressed the Bitgrail fiasco and how they’re gradually churning away at their roadmap (with 10% of the IOTA team) and how responsive they are; I am a much firmer believer in the block lattice; the public stress test results are sound and yes, while they have a ways to go, I can see a wide variety of implementations (non-crypto) for this tech. Most are simply not doable on the bitcoin blockchian.
and no offence taken