[bitcoin-dev] Merge of protocol

[Tier Nolan]

If the communities behind two coins wanted to merge, it would be possible,
but difficulty and risky.

It represents a hard fork on both chains.  Not only does each coin's
community need to agree, the two communities need to agree with each other.

They would both have to agree the join point.  The merge block would have 2
parents.


A <- B <- C <- D
                 \
                    J1 <- J2 <- J3 <- J4
                 /
w <- x <- y <- z


In the above example, A, B, C, D is one chain and w, x, y, z is the other.
They combine and then J1, J2, J3, J4 is the combined chain.

Since block "J1" has 2 parents, it commits to the state of the 2 legacy
chains.  If you have coins in each chain at D or z, then you get coins in
the joint chain.

They would both need to agree on what the rules are for their new chain.
Since it is a (double) hard fork, they can do pretty much anything they
want.

The combined chain could continue as before.  It would be a combined chain
and each user's coin total would be unaffected.  The advantage of doing
that is that it causes minimum economic disruption to users.  The mining
power for both chains would be applied to the joint chain, so they combine
their security.

Alternatively, they could agree on an exchange rate.  Users would be given
joint-coins in exchange for their coins on the 2 legacy chains.

For something like Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin, they could have a
re-combination rule.  1 Bitcoin-Recombined = 1 BTC + 1 BCH.  That doesn't
seem very likely though and also there are more BCH coins than BTC coins.

It might be worth moving this to bitcoin-discuss, since it isn't really
Bitcoin protocol discussion.


Wed, Jan 24, 2018 at 11:56 AM, Ilan Oh via bitcoin-dev <bitcoin-dev at lists.
linuxfoundation.org> wrote:

> 2017 was fork year,
>
> Is it technically possible to merge two protocoles ? And thus bringing the
> strength of both into one resulting coin.
>
> I would not be surprized to see a lot of altcoin wanting to merge with
> bitcoin or between them, especially with LN current development, if it is
> possible,
>
> If anyone has ideas or ressources on this,
>
> Thanks
>
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>
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