Minority fork -- when is the time right?

[Windowly]

When will the time be right for a minority fork (hash-power wise)?

I'm convinced if minority-fork bitcoin is the bitcoin with the lowest fees and with no congestion, it will also be the bitcoin that is used the most by exchanges, payment processors, dark markets, mom-and-pop stores and any place online. Even though the fork will be minority-hash power driven, it will have the backing of the economic majority behind it.

Even without adding any privacy/fungibility features this minority fork would win. Adding a couple privacy/fungibility features would make it even harder for the legacy core-coin to even think about competing.

The question we have to start asking -- how long are we going to wait before we minority fork? If the economic majority is behind us, we will be successful. But we have to fork before bitcoin becomes just a buggy irrelevant alt-coin in a sea of alt-coins. If there is no fork planned in April should we start a minority fork? Or June? How long shall we wait? (We've already waited two years to have the bitcoin we knew and loved.)

[Ferox]

minority-hash power driven? Wow! So at last you've come to conclusion that majority will never support you!

[torusJKL]

As it is today I don't see a future in a minority big block chain.

For the following reasons:

• the exchanges have clearly taken side with the Bitcoin Core implementation
• the aggressive DDoS attacks and exploits against Bitcoin Unlimited show us that the small blockers would attack the minority chain
• many users are in the dark and most of them will run Bitcoin Core

On the other side a minority chain with for example UASF could very much succeed because

• the exchanges would support the minority chain
• most users are running Bitcoin Core and thus would just come along

[Windowly]

As it is today I don't see a future in a minority big block chain.

For the following reasons:

• the exchanges have clearly taken side with the Bitcoin Core implementation
• the aggressive DDoS attacks and exploits against Bitcoin Unlimited show us that the small blockers would attack the minority chain
• many users are in the dark and most of them will run Bitcoin Core

On the other side a minority chain with for example UASF could very much succeed because

• the exchanges would support the minority chain
• most users are running Bitcoin Core and thus would just come along

I do think though if there are two Bitcoins, the Bitcoin that is more economically useful will win. Users will want to use the Bitcoin that has the lowest fees and quickest confirmations, and if enough users clamor for it, exchanges will offer trading in the more useful Bitcoin.

I'm happy people like Olivier Janssens are brainstorming a minority fork. I would definitely support such a measure, although I hope it doesn't come to that and we can fork with a clean majority of the hashing power.

[Windowly]

This is the draft of the minority fork declaration -- it's on reddit but I think it's good to have a copy here too. Who knows, we might have to edit it and use it if the blocks don't keep turning green.

Bitcoin Classic is splitting off At the time of this writing, the Bitcoin community is in disarray. After years of debate, it became clear there are two distinctive groups of people:

Those who want to turn Bitcoin into a settlement network: A limited blocksize, artificial fee market, getting as many transactions away from the blockchain as possible by using third party solutions such as the Lightning Network or other sidechain solutions. Those who want to keep Bitcoin in line with Bitcoin’s whitepaper and Satoshi’s vision: Using Bitcoin as its intended onchain peer to peer cash system, and not implementing any artificial limits that force people to use sidechain solutions by getting their transactions stuck.

There are more nuances to this debate, but that’s basically the gist of it. As an act of good faith, and to resolve this fight amicably so we can all move on, we have decided to split off. We wish all the best to those who continue on the other path. What Bitcoin Classic will offer: A return to the Bitcoin from a year ago. No high fees and no more stuck transactions. A simple and predictable cryptocurrency with a clear vision: We will follow Bitcoin’s whitepaper and Satoshi’s subsequent clarifications.

An open, inclusive community without censorship of any form. The ability to pay for your coffee through bitcoins peer to peer cash system. On a more practical level, here’s what’s going to happen: On June 1st 2017, we will hard fork to our own chain. Everyone who has Bitcoins at that point, will get the same amount of Classic coins for free. So if you own 1 Bitcoin, you will now get 1 Bitcoin on the old system, and 1 Bitcoin Classic.

We believe this will achieve the best outcome for those who hold Bitcoin: They don’t have to take any risks, as they can just get both coins at no additional cost. We will implement support for merge mining, so miners can mine Bitcoin Classic for free, while continuing to mine Bitcoin Core. We believe this will achieve the best outcome for miners: They don’t have to take any risks, as they can just mine both coins at no additional cost.

We will implement replay protection, so exchanges and wallet providers can add support for Bitcoin Classic easily. Our ticker symbols will be BCL and XBC [1] Trading Bitcoin Classic: It won’t be possible to trade Bitcoin Classic until after June 1st, but we expect several exchanges to offer prediction markets. Bitfinex will start listing BCL later this week. [1] We are aware XBC is already taken, but it has been declared obsolete and hasn’t been used since the 1970’s, and we have started up lobbying efforts to claim it.

Questions and Answers
Q: What’s the block size limit you will use? A: For now, we will move to a static 8MB as this seems to be the best tradeoff. We will make sure to plan a subsequent increase well before that limit is reached. Our long term intention is to always stay above market demand.

Q: What about full nodes? Shouldn’t everyone be running a full node? A: We intend to add more functionality to the SPV client, so you can enforce rules without needing to run a full node. We believe that long term, full nodes will be mostly ran by miners, exchanges and other larger players as they have the best capability of doing so. This is how Satoshi intended the system to work. We will try to make it possible for as long as we can for everyone to run a full node, by solving the storage issue and making the network usage much more bearable.

[torusJKL]

I think BU and Classic can find common ground.
Should Classic make this move then BU could join.

May the better chain prosper.

[Windowly]

Yes it's good to see that the non-core implementations are working together and communicating with each other.

[Rmcdermott927]

I don't see a minority fork working. Why would exchanges and businesses back a system with a lower hash rate? Smart money will not likely jump into a system without miners backing it.