Updates & Forks - Discussion

Blockchain and Bitcoin 101
#183

Thx Jon, appreciate the clear explanation

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#184

Hi filip,

good lectures!

Also for hard forks need 100% consensus. It is really 100 %, thatā€™s mean if i started mined and have 0.0001% power in network. Could I still stop new forks?

Thank you

#185

Wait Filipā€¦ you just said you can lose money in an accidental fork? Thats kind of a huge deal!

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#186

I donā€™t fully understand your question about stopping new forks.
In a hardfork everyone needs to update. If you donā€™t update and keep mining the old chain you are basically on a new blockchain with a new coin with the same blockchain history until the block where the hardfork happened. If for example only 10 miners donā€™t update, your blockchain will only have 10 miners and I donā€™t think you will find users willing to use this version. A blockchain is made by users, miners, developersā€¦ A whole community. Only when for example 35% of the whole community doesnā€™t want to update, you will end up in a real split

3 Likes
#187

Iā€™m really curious as to what happens from the Minerā€™s POV?
For instance in case of the forks that occur, will the miners of the stale chain not receive RB and the fee? Is the fee split or does the stale prong lose out on all fee/RB?

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#188

Hi Fabrice,

Thank you for your answer. Yes, i wrote it bad. I just meant: Who does the decisions? - Community. Can I be part of community? - But how its works. Where is the page?

You know what I mean - Where/Who is a community?

I have no idea, that is why I am asking.

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#189

If you as a miner create a block and get your block reward and transaction fees, but due to a soft fork or fork your block goes stale, do you lose your reward and the transaction fees? Thatā€™s seems like a big opportunity cost bearing in mind the electricity involved.

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#190

You mention a rule change causing a hard fork: who are what decided on the rule change? I thought bitcoin was decentralised, this indicates a centralised power of some sort. Thank you.

3 Likes
#191

The blockreward is unspendable for 100 blocks.
In case this block becomes stale. The miner of this valid block that becomes a stale block, wonā€™t be happy.

2 Likes
#192

Thank you! That makes a lot more sense and really gives a more complete picture.

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#193

So, if a soft fork is successful in obtaining >50% adoption and the new, restricted rules are applied, does that invalidate the larger blocks in the chain that were previously accepted, thus requiring a re-mining of the entire blockchain? OR, would it just continue from the point of application of the new rule set and invalidate only those that are subsequently added?

#194

My question is, what happened with the Bitcoin Cash, SV, Gold, and Diamond forks?

  1. At the time of the forks, were the values of each coin the same? And then BTC later became worth a lot more than the others?
  2. And how would it be determined after one of these forks, if my coins that I received were actual bitcoin or one of the new coins? I would be angry if someone sent me BTC but then it turned out that I only received BSV or something. I am still trying to wrap my brain around this.

Is there another spot in the course that these historical forks and the philosophy behind each will be covered?

#196

It it determined in the source code at what specific block number a fork will occur. Therefore all the previous blocks remain valid and only new blocks are checked for the validity with the new rules.

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#197
  1. The price for any coin, not just the Bitcoin fork is determined by the supply and demand. I am not exactly sure what were the initial prices for BCH and BSV but even if the initial price would be set at the same price as BTC, other people would set up a lower price, pushing it down. Eventually the value settles at a specific price.
  2. If you are running a Bitcoin wallet and someone sends you Bitcoin cash you would easily determine that by not seeing the balance being updated in your wallet.
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#198

Is 1mB the block size limit for all/most crypto currencies or just BTC? Is this something that developers can change at anytime? Why the 1mB limit?

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#199

Hi @Technophile :slight_smile: the block size of 1MB is mostly specific to Bitcoin and it can be increased at any time if the consensus between node runners is reached. Historically this has been a debate and is the reason why Bitcoin cash fork happened.
The limit is mostly technical because with larger blocks you would require better hardware and bandwidth to process the blocks.

3 Likes
#200

Hi Filip great explanation for the different kinds of forks and love the quiz at the end to test us.

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#201

What about cardanoā€™s hard fork when they will move to shelley ? I think I understood once they will make an hard fork the old byron blockchain will cease to exist. But from the lessons I understood the old chain can continue to exist. Can someone explain it to me pls ? thx @filip

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#202

Thank you Fabrice, thatā€™s very helpful.

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#203

If a hard fork is initiated with say only 90% of the community support, how can this part of the community make sure to sustain the new hard fork given that they will lose the ability to establish the blockchain with the greater PoW?

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