[bitcoin-dev] Is it possible for there to be two chains after a hard fork?

[Allen Piscitello]

>If you start with the premise that more than half of Bitcoin miners would
do something crazy that would either destroy Bitcoin or would be completely
unacceptable to you, personally... then maybe you should look for some
other system that you might trust more, because Bitcoin's basic security
assumption is that a supermajority of miners are 'honest.'

Miners not being crazy does not mean they are infallible.  They may
misjudge the market and change their minds about what is the most
reasonable action based on new information.  Their commitment to one fork
or another is very dynamic, and is a huge assumption missing.  They may
overestimate their influence, support of the economy.  Other factors may
come into play that no one thought of, and they can revert back at any
point.

Labeling things as insane or crazy is not productive.

>because Bitcoin's basic security assumption is that a supermajority of
miners are 'honest.'

Only if you rely on SPV.

On Tue, Sep 29, 2015 at 12:35 PM, Gavin Andresen <gavinandresen at gmail.com>
wrote:

> On Tue, Sep 29, 2015 at 1:24 PM, Allen Piscitello <
> allen.piscitello at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I fail to see how always following a majority of miners no matter what
>> their actions somehow equates to insanity.
>
>
> Ok, I have a hidden assumption: I assume most miners are also not
> completely insane.
>
> I have met a fair number of them, and while they are often a little bit
> crazy (all entrepreneurs are a little bit crazy), I am confident that the
> vast majority of them are economically rational, and most of them are also
> meta-rational: they want Bitcoin to succeed. We've seen them demonstrate
> that meta-rationality when we've had accidental consensus forks.
>
> If you start with the premise that more than half of Bitcoin miners would
> do something crazy that would either destroy Bitcoin or would be completely
> unacceptable to you, personally... then maybe you should look for some
> other system that you might trust more, because Bitcoin's basic security
> assumption is that a supermajority of miners are 'honest.'
>
> --
> --
> Gavin Andresen
>
>
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