Something else came to my mind:
If both chains continue to exist, would it be possible to do 'merged mining' on both blockchains,
similar to merged mining of BTC and NMC today ?
No one has answered this. The answer must be yes, it would be possible with a modified client.
Another scenario comes up when you consider the shadow miners, all the at-home ASIC owners who turned off their machines as they lost out to the mega-miners. They'd surely consider turning them back onto mining on the "losing" fork at reduced value, because the difficulty will drop dramatically as well. Shadow miners are mostly from the idealistic phase of Bitcoin, so their incentive to continue on Core if XT wins out will be great.
Both forks continue, one will not die to zero. One may become sub $1 again, but that's OK for some people.
OK - this actually made me think of something I haven't seen elsewhere.....
Let's assume the above scenario does occur - a fork where both chains survive. What happens to the "finite number" of Bitcoin. I mean, say you have 15 million Bitcoin at Zero Hour. Then say XT Fork wins, and the vast majority of Bitcoins choose that chain.
But say 1 Million of those Bitcoin Holders choose the Core Chain. Does that mean that the New Finite number of bitcoins that will ever exist on XT will now be 20 million?NOTE: I also still can't understand what is going to drive people to stay on Core
IF XT Chain wins and takes off. Because in that scenario there is almost a 100% chance that Bitcoin XT will start moving up in value, and Bitcoin-Core will start devaluing massively in the immediate aftermath. I just am trying to imagine sitting there looking at my wallet with a Bitcoin in it, and saying if I take the right hand path I get $200+ and if I go left I get $20 - and then deciding to do the STUPID thing. I mean - why wouldn't I just go to XT for a lot more value, then sell for dollars, then go back and buy TEN (10) Bitcoin-Core (now a minor fork altcoin). I mean - I am thinking that is the path people would take??? I would.
No, it doesn't.
That's like saying "Will LiteCoin reduce the amount of Bitcoin?"
If there is a fork, it doesn't care about the other fork, it's really just as easy as that.
This is right. Don't think of a fork as dividing bitcoin into two pieces. Think of it as creating a parallel universe. (The fiat money invested would divide though.)
I'm still absorbing all of this - but I do want to say that I am still not convinced that the doubling / dual fork parallel universes is fact or theory. I really think this is a pretty big deal that is not being widely discussed - so that makes me wonder if it is a Real deal. I think something like this would deserve a public comment from one of the Core Devs or Gavin/Mike.
But assuming it is possible....
1) This raises really big issues with future Hard Forks. For example - what happens if the China Miners/Exchanges decide to go a different route from Western Miner/Exchanges. Could the Bitcoin Supply split again? Because once things get more globally accepted and Bitcoin a more global currency - I can see potential future politically motivated Hard Fork divergencies. I mean - if Gavin & Mike can do it - surely China or the U.S. or Europe could do it?? As pointed out earlier - kind of blows the whole fixed supply concept.
2) OP posted a few posts up something about the Bitcoin Price could be driven down, even on both chains, as cross attacks/dumping occurs. Eh - maybe. But I think that is taking a limited perspective of looking at Bitcoin with the current currency marketshare it has NOW. What happened to the whole 1 Bitcoin will equal $1 Million in a endstage game. It could just as easily be that an event happens after the fork to make everyone run/be driven into Bitcoin, and price will go up so fast that Buyers will outnumber sellers 10's of thousand to 1. Not that farfetched actually.
3) Interestingly, if the whole Doubling / Dual Universe Coin theory is viable, then it most likely will be known by everyone as Zero Hour approaches, and only an idiot won't be making plans to double coins into both universes. And so I would imagine you actually would end up with 2 Bitcoin Currencies. Core would most like be the favored "underground currency" and would be treated/seen sort of like physical Gold is today. XT would become the Fiat Bitcoin obviously. BOTH would probably skyrocket in value eventually - although because of the huge insider Miner/Exchange infrastructure probably following XT - XT-Fiat would indeed probably shoot the moon fastest. BUT - like I said, if this is real, then EVERYOE will know about it soon enough,a nd plans being made - as a defense against the XT Fork if nothing else.
4) I'd still like to hear more on the technical issues involved in "tainting" coins. Again, assuming that this is even possible. Because it is really sounding a lot like an untested theory - but with potentially huge consequences.
If you understand about bitcoin tx using inputs and making outputs, then you can see that this is not any theory.
Just also remember that bitcoin protocol will reject any invalid input, otherwise people could just make up random inputs and spend them.
with me so far?
ok, so now we assume that XT will get a block that core cant use, ie it exceeds its capacity.
Now what do we have? A block with unspent outputs that is perfectly valid in the XT universe, but totally invalid in the core universe.
there is no theory, uncertainity or any doubt that there will be outputs that are valid in XT but invalid in core. Now, we take these XT only outputs and combine it with existing corecoins that were there before the fork. no magic required, just a matter to create a transaction that uses an XT only input and an old input that existed prefork.
what happens?
In XT chain, this is a perfectly valid tx and it can be spent wherever XT is accepted. However, remember about the part of the protocol rejecting tx with invalid inputs? In core chain, this tx is rejected. As in it never happened!
So you have just spawned an XT only bitcoin, but you still have the original bitcoin! As to why this is not discussed by the others, I have no idea. Maybe they just assume that overnight thousands of decentralized entities with simulteneously flip the same switch in the same direction so this is not anything to worry about?
James