Rodion Kovalenko

Bitcoin Hard Fork Debates: 8 Experts Are Giving Their View Hard fork​ means splitting the network by two concurrent pools of currency. It's been almost two weeks the Bitcoin market is shaking in front of the possibility of a hard fork in the nearest future. Some say it's inevitable, some are more than skeptical. And the rest of us just don't know what to expect, since all our crypto-money are about to either disappear or somehow divide between two concurrent networks and overall currencies. The only thing is clear — if the fork is to happen, it's going to be a big thing for the market, which has also split up by fork supporters and adversaries. Read through ... experts' opinions and decide on which side you are. Where hard fork debates started… again All Bitcoin transactions are divided on blocks, which are processed by a "miner" — hardware device or a set of devices that solve complicated equations to make the transaction happen. An association of large mining facilities is usually called a "mining pool" and the bigger the pool, the more influence it has on the whole network. Bitcoin network technical limitations, like block size limitation by the 1MB, make it easier for miners to verify and process transactions. However, in the meantime, smaller blocks create a queue of transactions that wait for approval. The significant part of community thinks that increasing default block size will help the network process each transaction faster and therefore eliminate the queue. Being short, ​Bitcoin Unlimited​ — ​the world’s largest bitcoin mining pool has escalated overdue scaling debates, because they claim to have a solution: 1. Allow each bitcoin node ('miner') to set the blocksize by itself 2. Allow each miner to determine the total amount of blocks he can process 3. Establish the signaling system to let nodes inform the network of the desired block size Other important thing: they've decided to turn open-source Bitcoin Core code into the private one. The other side of the conflict puts their stacks on ​Segregated Witness​ — a soft fork solution that is claimed to both solve the blocksize question and defend the existing Bitcoin network from ​malleability attacks​. Therefore, they are totally against the measures presented by the Bitcoin Unlimited. Let's see why. Experts speaking on Bitcoin hard fork possibility and outcomes The blockchain is a network. It's decentralized, so there's no one to decide whether the hard fork worth it, but users and large market players. Each approach could win the competition, if to be supported by a majority of users. Of course, in such circumstances enthusiasts, adopters and investors from both sides of the dispute couldn't resist expressing their own attitude to the hard fork necessity. One of the famous Bitcoin investors and Bitcoin Unlimited supporters ​Roger Ver​ talks about the consequences of using full blocks. He specifically criticized the "intentional fee policy" that Bitcoin Core supports. He also points out that altcoins are quietly taking the market. ​ Pixelmatic's​ CEO​ Samson Mow​ parries with a warning to the community: Speaker and security engineer ​Andreas Antonoopoulos​ shared an article that highlights possible outcomes: Cryptography consultant ​Peter Todd​ believes that the whole BTU infrastructure and code aren't ready to the hard fork, and also casts some shades on their close-source coding approach. Brian Kelly​,​ the author of the "The Bitcoin Big Bang" and early adopter doubts in the hard fork success, if it's to happen soon. Bloq​ founder ​Jeff Garzik​ also warns that hard fork will take more time and more mutual agreements than everyone expect. User ​Whale Panda​ is on the same side of the barricade, but notices that after all, ​Bitmain co-founder ​Jian Wu​ supports Bitcoin Unlimited and he usually knows what he's doing. BitcoinFoundation.org​ founder ​Charlie Shrem​ calmed down his followers with a fresh insight from China. As you can see from Tweets, experts are really doubtful in hard fork success. As we try to prepare for outcomes, more panic is involved and Bitcoin price follows — currency rates get boosted or decreased with each controversial statement. At least the community doesn't lose its sense of humor, despite debates are reaching the boiling point. Meanwhile, a big exchangers group including Bitfinex, Bitstamp, Coinfloor, Bitso and other platforms ​issued a contingency plan​, where BTU, a currency that would probably appear after a hard fork, is described as an altcoin (not real Bitcoin). The statement warns community — we're going to support Bitcoin Core only, if the BTU community won't prove they have a consistent and built-in two-way replay protection. So, in the opinion of exchanges, the working BTU account comes first and hard fork later. We have our own statement regarding the issue, please take a minute to read. What's next? The situation continues to evolve turning Twitter into the battlefield. The project that gets 80% hashrates (the sum of values in ongoing operations e.g. utilization) will be able to change the Bitcoin history. And only the time will tell us what lies ahead.