Re: The Barry Silbert segwit agreement with >80% miner agreement.
A chain split would mean a severe usability reduction. Every user that uses a certain number of Bitcoin services (e.g. exchanges, merchant sites, remittance services) is deprived from using a part of them in the case of a chain split if he doesn't want to use both chains.
I don't see why. After all, a chain split doesn't "halve" the users or the coins: the old chain remains exactly as it was, with all the holdings etc... and all its functionality, and all its users. Of course, if the old chain loses traction, then of course, it will lose out to the new chain - but I don't see the difference with an alt coin.
The difference is that the altcoin is visible from the start as a clearly separated ecosystem, while in the case of an chainsplit that is not so clear. In every chain split there will be services that were available to the users of the existing chain that limit themselves to only one chain (because of ideology or practical considerations). So it's most probable you, as an user, couldn't use all the services you were used to after the split, because otherwise you would have to use both chains.
In addition, there is the value/price problem. Money is useful because it's an unit of account. Even now without chain split Bitcoin is volatile, but at least for short-term operations it is usable. What would you do as an user if the chain splits and you have to care about the value you posess? You would have to sell your holdings on the chain you don't want to use anymore (e.g. because of there are no services that support it) on an exchange. Even if the prices of Chain A + Chain B reach the price of the old chain, it's a major usability hassle to have to worry about that.
For these reasons, I consider mainstream adoption is not possible with a constantly forking blockchain. Bitcoin would be restricted to a niche market of nerds and some speculators.
Quote
Well, I'm absolutely convinced that the market prices of coins have *strictly* nothing to do with any form of usage, but are purely speculative. Under any realistic estimation, the demand of bitcoin for usage (buying stuff with, apart from buying alt coins or fiat) should result in a bitcoin price of, say, $20,- to $100,- at this moment (I can explain this with Fisher's formula).
At the moment it's mostly speculation on future use that fuels the price. Bitcoin's $2000+ wouldn't be possible if there wasn't the dream of Bitcoin being a global currency in the future, and yes for that to work it must be mainstream friendly. And it isn't true that prices have nothing to do with usage: often news that are indicating growing usage (adoption by a large merchant, "legalization" in a country like Japan etc.) do have impact in the price.
We can go back to the $20 times without usage and experiment with hard forks and chain splits all the time until we find the best implementation, but I consider most of the community would not like this vision
There are already a lot of investments made and companies that wouldn't be happy at all.Quote
Yes, but that is exactly what a fork is (see above). There's no difference in principle between a compacted new genesis block with a coinbase that gives the bitcoin owners their original holdings in the new coin, and a "clumsy genesis block" which is a 140 GB piece of block chain.
There is a difference, because even in a blockchain with a snapshot-based genesis block the ecosystems are clearly separated from the start. Such a "genesis fork" is the type of fork I don't consider harmful. It's mostly a "social" or "communication" difference, but I consider it very important because of the problems I outlined above in the case of a chain split of an existing coin.
Quote
Quote
That's also why I support the agreement and only would support UASF in the case it has a real chance to get a supermajority of miners, exchanges/economy and users.
But if that is the case, no UASF is necessary because the Core stuff would activate.
95% for a soft fork is a very high threshold and can be blocked by every pool. I would be happy with a 75%-80% majority, in this case I would fully support the UASF because there will be clearly a majority and a minority chain.