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Bitcoin Cash November 15th Upgrade - What price is right?
To help businesses understand the facts on the possibility of chain split on November 15th, I am collecting the information from both sides of the split, so that businesses can gauge the price ratio and make informed decision on which coin to invest and build their business on, and which price is right. Here is the summary:
Bitcoin Cash November 15th Network SplitBitcoin Cash November 15th Network Split
Notes: IFP chain will always be created on November 15th even if they do not get majority hashrate. Non-IFP chain will only be created if they are ahead of IFP chain for 10 blocks, or manually split by each individual node operators. In either case, the original chain will be abandoned. One chain will retain the BCH ticker symbol depending on exchange's policy, most likely will be based on hashrate. Do check with your exchange if and how they support the split.
Risks:
If no chain split, then Non-IFP nodes will follow IFP chain, and IFP chain will claim BCH ticker
Non-IFP chain, even after creation, may experience the wipeout issue (Which the node will point to the longer chain), especially for node implementations other than ABC (Non-IFP) and BCHN. New nodes or rebooted nodes will also experiencing the wipeout issue. Expected to have a patch soon after the split to prevent the issue.
No replay protection has been added to both IFP and non-IFP. I am checking if the replay protection will be added in the future to avoid the transactions will be broadcast to both network and will update the article once I have the informatoin.
If you find anything is incorrect or any critical information is missed out, kindly let me know. This is just some simple facts about both proposal, please do check each implementation capability, credibility and other factors to determine your investment strategy.
Indeed it will be very difficult for businesses to build on a protocol without a roadmap because they don't know what to expect. Unless they lock the protocol, then it is really not good for businesses
As for businesses, a vision and a roadmap is critical to build on. Yes things can be changed due to market conditions but if you are building a business on a chain, then you would be better to know it beforehand, rather than let the market decide. No roadmap you will never get to achieve the vision/goals, unless you are saying the protocal is stable and you are locking it down.
Again, they are not "free from vision" or "building blindly". Each team has their own agenda and they have presented that publicly. Each team is talking about what they are doing, so as a builder I do know what to expect on the short term, and on the very long term.
The medium term they need to communicate better, but I think they'll get there.
How can we ensure they are all targeting the same goals?
They are talking with eachother on a daily basis and have agreed on that there's no shame in discussing ideas, but that anything that needs protocol adjustment has to come with serious research and a clear motivation before it is proposed as a protocol change.
We as users can never 'ensure' anything, and no roadmap or stated project goal or vision will change that. Just take the ABC coinbase rule as an example - it was neither a stated goal nor on the roadmap, and they still chose to split the network over it.
I don't do prediction. Only to see what price is reasonable to buy or sell and which side to build business on if we are to stay with Bitcoin Cash xyz. Just wait and see how things go.
Indeed it will be very difficult for businesses, to build on a protocol without a roadmap because they don't know what to expect. Unless they lock the protocol, then it is really not good for businesses.
Bitocin which I know is the best to work with and perfect for some things I think this is real pure steam in this and make some more improved versions.
Since there is still a possibility that other node implementations may follow the IFP chain, so it is not correct to say BCHN follow ABC chain. But I see your point. I have updated the picture for IFP and Non-IFP sides to avoid any confusion. Hope it makes sense but do let me know...
Thanks for the concise summary. Just regarding the roadmap for BCHN, there is a publicly accessible project plan: https://schedule.bitcoincashnode.org/index.html. I know that this isn't the same as a long-term roadmap but still useful information for investors.
That is for one team's plan only. They will need to get consensus with other teams and it is not long enough to be a roadmap. They also publicly state that the roadmap is community driven, so it is fair to say they have no roadmap.
Yep no one wants split. There is still a chance for not splitting if majority of miners mine ABC, which seems unlikely. But there we go... like it or not, it is about which price is more reasonable to buy or sell and which side to build businesses on.
If you find anything is incorrect or any critical information is missed out, kindly let me know.
Either the non-IFP side does not have a lead developer, or the BCHN side does not have "core teams". Currently it reads like it has both, which implies Freetrader is in control of Verde, Knuth, BCHD etc on top of BCHN.
The non-IFP side infrastructure funding is not "flipstarter" - it is voluntary but it uses multiple mechanics ranging from direct donations to corporate sponsorships.
Same for development funding.
Non-IFP decision making is absolutely not "flipstarter". Flipstarter is a fundraising tool, the decisionmaking happens BEFORE raising funds and the funds rai sed validates a demand to follow through on the decisions presented.
chain creation conditions is incorrect for non-IFP and naively assumes that the only way to cause a split is with >50% hashrate, but that is incorrect. Normal variance is expected to hit a 10+ blocks triggering the split even if hashrate is much much lower. Furthermore, incentives might not play out as some expect since ABC will try to orphan otherwise valid blocks, making it valuable for miners to build on the orphaned block as that will give them the old block + the new blocks reward. That is not all either, there's lots of more ways for a fork to happen since the two sides are in disagreement.
Chain wipeout risk is based on the incorrect assumption above and actually is either high on both sides, or essentially irrelevant for both sides.
Ticker symbol for non-IFP side also makes the same incorrect assumption above for the less-than-majority hashrate. It's unknown what name it will have if it's not majority, though.
Ok I will take it that no lead developer and no core team for BCHN. For funding, I already stated privately funded, so direct donations and corporate sponsorships fall into the private funding also. But do let me know if that is not correct.
Decision making is meant on how money is distributed to projects, BHCN is more like no centralised decision making on how money is distributed, but rather via various means such as flipstarters and others funding. Let me know if I miss something?
chain creation conditions: at scale, the condition to cause the split is 50% of hashrate going to BCHN. Yes, the split can occur with even tiny variance in mining, but the software is usually designed so that the node will go back to the longer chain. So in the cases you mentioned, it requires adjustment effort from each individual node, therefore I would not say it is a built-in mechanism for splitting, but rather an adhoc way to split, which can be done at any point of time, so it is not in the scope of my article.
Same for Chain wipeout risk, with ABC node software only follow chain created by the ABC node for the IFP rule, so there is no risk for the ABC chain to split, as no other node software produce blocks with IFP rule. On the other hand, BCHN nodes do accept ABC's block with IFP rules, so unless BCHN chain is ahead for 10 blocks, BCHN nodes will follow ABC's chain. On that circumstance, the only way for BCHN to split is to manually point the node software to the minority BCHN chain. This does represent the risk of for BCHN nodes, especially when the node reboot or start afresh, and other node implementation like BCHD, BU, etc... will follow ABC instead of BCHN because they are the longest chain. Let me know if it makes sense.
Ticker symbol: See above. Also, I already mentioned that eventhough the hashrate will be a major factor, each exchange may have their own policy. And the BCH is the ticker symbol at stake, so I don't mention the new symbol as it can be anything.
Decision making is meant on how money is distributed to projects, BHCN is more like no centralised decision making on how money is distributed, but rather via various means such as flipstarters and others funding. Let me know if I miss something?
First things first: BCHN is a full node implementation. BCHN is not one of the sides of a possible split in the network, as the non-ABC or non-IFP side consists of multiple nodes.
BCHN as a full node implementation does not take and distribute money to others. Each party is responsible for aquiring their own funds, and are expected to do so in whatever way best fits them, which includes crowd funding (flipstarters), direct donations, corporate investments and likely many other ways as well.
Correct, because the legacy BCH or the BCHN chain does not have the new coinbase rule or GNC so it is still based on offchain funding model, such as donation, flipstarter, corporate sponsorship. I will change it to Offchain funding to make clear with the on chain funding of Bitcoin Cash ABC. Hope it clear and thanks for clarifying.
It should be "coinbase funding" and "non-coinbase funding" to be clear. There are on-chain ways to fund projects that doesn't come from the coinbase, and there are on-chain ways govern or distribute funds as well, regardless of what source (coinbase or not) they orginally had.
chain creation conditions: at scale, the condition to cause the split is 50% of hashrate going to BCHN. Yes, the split can occur with even tiny variance in mining, but the software is usually designed so that the node will go back to the longer chain. So in the cases you mentioned, it requires adjustment effort from each individual node, therefore I would not say it is a built-in mechanism for splitting, but rather an adhoc way to split, which can be done at any point of time, so it is not in the scope of my article.
BCHN as a node software inhereted the 10-block finalization rule from ABC, and as such, the variance in mining only needs to get 10 blocks deep for all BCHN nodes to agree not to abandon the chain even if a longer one exists. This is likely to happen within a day or two without cordination even if the BCHN using miners are only a low percentage of the network, like 20%.
In reality though, this is a social problem and I have it on good authority that there are people who are going to work to create the necessary conditions to not accept the coinbase rule on their network.
That is interesting, many sources have been telling me that more than 50% hashrate for more than 10 blocks is needed for a BCHN chain being created by the inbuilt rules without manual intervention. Do you have a link or and source to prove the point?
Contrarian worked out the probability of the math on reddit, but I can't find the link at the moment.
The relevant part is that you need to get 10 block in a row, but it doesn't have to be the first 10 blocks after the hard fork, and given that hashing is probabalistic, anyone who says you "have to have more than 50% hashrate for more than 10 blocks" is very clearly wrong.
I see your point. I think the statement is meant for high probability of chain split happen with that condition. But I agree all is probability, smaller hash can have a possibility of pulling ahead for 10 blocks, which is the condition to split, but with much lower probability, likewise, the higher hashrate doesn't mean a sure split, it just has higher probability. In short, the condition is to get the BCHN chain 10 blocks ahead.
Yes, but with "low probability", it is actaully much much higher than you present here. Add in that this won't even be a matter of probability in the end, since the non-IFP isn't just math and software, but people and networks. If ABC orphans a non-IFP block, there will be a split, and the split will be permanent because the financial incentive to accept such an orphaning and re-join the ABC chain by the people who have already committed to not doing so just doesn't exist.
No problem. I just made it simply by saying the BCHN will split with 10 block ahead, which will trigger the finalisation rule and cause the chain split. For manual splitting of the chain, that would occur at anytime by any network, so I would not mention in the article.
I personally see that as somewhat misleading - the hard fork and the entire setup is a manual construction and saying that THE chain split condition is "10 blocks ahead" entirely ignores a large number of other possible outcomes that also splits the chain.
Imagine this, after the hard fork block, the non-IFP side mines a block that the IFP side orphans. The miners for the 5~6 pools that represent majority hash manually reject the ABC block. The node developers release new updates that includes the non-IFP block as the commitment block.
The non-IFP side don't need 10-block finalization in order to cooperate, and they are cooperating. This is a social network, it is a social problem and it is naive to ignore the humans involved.
I understand, however I am just stating the facts that I know how the rules are currented coded. At this point, I don't know if the manual intervention will ever happen, so I cannot speculate. Technically it is true and can happen, however the only sure thing for the split is that BCHN gets 10 blocks ahead. I will put a note though that technically a chain split can be triggered by manual intervention on a social coordination. Thanks for your input!
Yes. You still base this on the incorrect assumption that all that would determine the outcome is "hashrate + longest chain", when the coinbase rule is very much a change in the expectations which means that humans are going to re-evaluate and take action.
Understand your point, it is possible for manual intervention, and even a new software can be patched to avoid the reorg, however it does represent a risk, do you agree?
Just looked through the links and various other places, I will take it that Bitcoin Cash has no lead developers and even core teams. As for the governance, can you share what is the market base governance is a simple term or white paper in which the community approved? The video you shared is the opinion of a group of people and since there is no lead or speakperson for Bitcoin Cash, it is hard to say that the group is represent for Bitcoin Cash. And who is Rick Falkvinge and who appointed him as the CEO of Bitcoin Cash?
Ok. Thanks. Anyway, I have just updated the infographic to state clearly this is about funding goverance, not the network goverance. In that sense, the decision making is also Funding decision making, which is mostly based on Flipstarters.
What is "funding governance"? Can you define this term? All references to governance in this context that I have seen are in the context of the network.
I have never heard of "funding governance"?
Isn't just a fancy term for "I spent my own money as I please"?
There are 2 governances with IFP. Network governance still remain the same, follow Nakamoto concensus by Miners PoW voting. Funding governance is defined as GNC, manages the funding resulted from new coinbase rules. Hope it makes sense.
I see. The point is about the lead developer, not about someone controlling the whole network since the network is decentralized by PoW nature and Nakamoto consensus. Anyway, I have removed the lead developer altogether to avoid any confusion.
Newbies should know this.. Althought this isn't official yet, I guess, but it's better to gain more info about this upcoming upgrade.