[Bitcoin-segwit2x] August Status Report for SegWit2x

[Erik Voorhees]

"what makes S2X Bitcoin”

It will be Bitcoin if it earns the highest hash power and highest price. Given that 90%+ of miners are currently signaling support for it, and given that most of the large Bitcoin companies have done similarly, there is a strong argument the SegWit2x chain will just be known as Bitcoin, and the legacy chain will earn some other name, like Bitcoin Classic or similar.

None of that is guaranteed, but let’s stop with this petty dispute of “what makes Bitcoin.”  The title will be bestowed in the marketplace, derived from its constituent pieces of miner, economic, and user support. The title of Bitcoin is not a trademark of the Bitcoin Core client and its particular developers. 


Kind regards,
-Erik Voorhees
CEO ShapeShift.io

On August 23, 2017 at 1:35:32 PM, Peter Todd via Bitcoin-segwit2x (bitcoin-segwit2x at lists.linuxfoundation.org) wrote:

On Wed, Aug 23, 2017 at 08:45:52AM -0700, Mike Belshe wrote:  
> > Equally, this shows that hash power signalling is not a good metric: miners  
> > have proven that they follow money, not agreements.  
> >  
> > You and and all other S2X supporters need to stop making these dishonest  
> > hashing power support statements.  
> >  
>  
> I believe your logic is incorrect. We should concern ourselves with those  
> that are mining Bitcoin, not those that are not mining Bitcoin.  

Let's go back to the basics here:  

BCH is a hard fork of Bitcoin that split from Bitcoin on Aug 1st, a date that  
was set in advance. S2X is also a hard fork of Bitcoin, that is planned to  
split from the Bitcoin chain as of block #494,784.  

Multiple times on this list and on the btc1 github it has been argued that the  
alleged hashing power superiority of S2X means that S2X does not need to  
implement things like proper BCH-style mandatory replay protection, or lite  
client protections like ensuring that lite clients can detect the hard fork via  
block headers. For example, Jeff Garzik used that argument here(1) to argue  
that the "one chain" outcome is likely, and thus replay protection is not  
needed:  

5) It is *not* good to include a change that breaks all wallets (meaning,  
requires upgrade to continue working post-2M HF). The likely case is that  
the NYA participants and 80+% hashpower will upgrade to 2M BBSI. Thus, in  
the the likely "one chain" outcome, a break-all-wallets change would be  
unnecessarily disruptive to users (to make a large understatement).  

Similarly, Jared Richardson:  

Right now between signalling and signatories, btc1 has ~95% of the  
hashpower. ~5% of the hashpower is not enough to be viable without a  
hardfork, in which case it would be more appropriate and less damaging for  
the ecosystem for the non-majority hardfork to add replay protection.  
Thus, replay protection would be a net loss for everyone if added to btc1.  

Or even your own statements(3):  

Our goal with segwit2x is to get massive miner support. We'll see if we  
get there. But if we do get 95+% support, its a better scenario than the  
very large chain split caused by requiring all application software to  
upgrade.  

These arguments hinge on hashing power *not* mining Bitcoin, and mining S2X.  
But as BCH proves, hashing power will mine whatever is profitable. In fact,  
we're already in a situation where it's plausible that the the most-work  
SHA256^2 chain may become BCH rather than Bitcoin at some point in the near  
future - a serious problem for lite clients as BCH's header chain is consensus  
compatible with from Bitcoin's.  


> As you can see from the evidence provided above, those mining Bitcoin today  
> are signaling for SegWit2x.  

In fact, your line of argument raises an important question: do you think S2X  
will be Bitcoin? On what basis? It's no different at a technical level than the  
BCH hard-fork that you just claimed was *not* Bitcoin, so what makes S2X  
Bitcoin?  


# References  

1) https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-segwit2x/2017-July/000246.html  
2) https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-segwit2x/2017-July/000197.html  
3) https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-segwit2x/2017-June/000037.html  


--  
https://petertodd.org 'peter'[:-1]@petertodd.org  
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