Quote from: azguard on October 16, 2017, 08:19:46 AM

Quote from: FuzzyQuant on October 14, 2017, 10:09:57 PM

Quote from: petroaj on October 14, 2017, 02:54:07 PM

Excellent explanation azguard! Thank you!

With the fork creating a new bitcoin in Bitcoin Gold, it doesnt actually do anything to BTC. My question is thus - can BTC be improved without a fork? Will it ever be able to increase processing bandwidth or transaction size without completely changing the code and creating a new coin, is this what SegWit2x is supposed to do? Or is BTC maxed out now in regards to speed and transaction size?

From my understanding, you can make changes to the code of bitcoin and improve various aspects of it without a hard-fork. If there is consensus by everyone, then there is no split. The split happens because people literally switch over to the other version of the code. Imagine every machine running one code and then, on the hard-fork, a number of machines start running the new code --> This is the split at the fundamental level.

The new code needs a whole new infrastructure (wallets, etc.) and will be "competing" with the legacy code for users, miners, etc. If users don't migrate, then miners won't have much reward as there will not be any serious bid on the price either. This will be a self-reinforcing cycle to make the chain irrelevant, as is becoming the case with Bitcoin Cash.

The real issue is when people want to assign the name Bitcoin and the symbol BTC to the new code. That can become very problematic, as people will be confused as to which one is which and that can lead to some serious disruption. Some companies seem to want to do that on this fork and, if they do and the fork gains momentum, then we will have potentially more serious issues to deal with than network speed and high fees.

These are my observations so far, let's hope for the best!

True you can make changes anytime, bu think that this time they really done it. 3 bitcoin different ones, pls this is becoming something that is just for fun.
If someone have a idea, other dont agree, then he/she/they create new bitcoin.

Bottom line is that this will not be last of bitcoin name coin that we see, if this works well (many think that it will cuz of free coins they will get), then i expect that we could have every year some new bitcoin name coin.

I find it pretty annoying that we're experiencing yet anther hard fork that will split the chains. The bitcoin gold one is certainly not hostile towards bitcoin (they don't consider themselves bitcoin) but I dislike the fact that they have bitcoin in their name. It just causes a lot of confusion. People I know in real life who aren't into really into crypto asked me what bitcoin cash is and if it is bitcoin as well. I don't have anything against forks like bitcoin gold but I think people who fork the bitcoin chain need to come up with a name that doesn't have 'bitcoin' in it.