Bitcoin Cash: Hardfork succeeds to new Difficulty Algorithm
The bitcoin chain that can hardfork: After a crazy weekend of extreme price jumps, Bitcoin Cash has forged a new algorithm for determining mining difficulty. This should put an end to the fluctuations between too fast and too slow, which have so far been accompanied by Bitcoin Cash.
Yesterday, all stock exchanges and marketplaces that run Bitcoin Cash (BCH) have suspended deposits and withdrawals in that currency. After BCH's price had doubled over the weekend, it was Hardfork time again for the Bitcoin Fork Coin, which is currently causing such a stir in the markets.
The Fork itself was not really controversial: everyone agrees that you have to get rid of the old Mining Difficulty algorithm. It has served its purpose - ensuring the survival of the Bitcoin cash chain - but puts the network in a permanent state of transition between a frozen and an overheated activity. A new algorithm is needed, the faster the better.
More controversial was the decision-making: The lead developer of BitcoinABC, Amaury Séchet, has set a hardfork for November 13 and proposed a new algorithm. Other developers, such as XT or Unlimited, have published further suggestions, which were then discussed in the mailing list. Just at the moment when the mailing list seemed to agree that the algorithm proposed by Tom Harding of XT works best, Séchet released a new release of ABC - with its algorithm. He later explained that he had to do this because the time for discussion had expired.
The Bitcoin cash community was not happy about it. She grumbled, but succumbed. After all, everybody agreed that the new algorithm was better than the old one and a big step forward. Politicians should not be worth delaying or forcing a necessary hardfork. So every important bitcoin cash client has implemented the fork besides ABC - Unlimited, XT and Electron Cash. A chip split was not expected.
The Fork was set to a certain time: "If the median time of the last 11 blocks is greater than or equal to the UNIX Timestamp 1510600000," the new rules apply, according to the documentation of Fork. A "Unix Timestamp" is a somewhat nerdy way to specify a time; it refers to seconds after January 1, 1970, UTC. If you convert that, the Hardfork was clocked on yesterday from about 19 clock.
However, since there was one block at this time, which took two hours to wait, and a few more hesitant sequence blocks, the new Difficulty algorithm did not come into effect until about 10pm.
What exactly does the new algorithm do? It adjusts the difficulty of mining every new block, based on a moving average of the block intervals of the last 144 blocks. Due to several tests, the Bitcoin Cash developers assume that this will keep the block intervals at about 600 seconds. So far, the block production has indeed stabilized compared to before, but is still a bit away from landing regularly at about 600 seconds. But it is believed that this will settle over the next few days.
In addition, the Hardfork takes two changes from Cores SegWit BIP146. Namely, LOW_S signatures and Nullfail are activated. I have no idea what that is exactly, but it supposedly eliminates some forms of third-party malleability. The same changes are already active in the Bitcoin network.
A good 12 hours after Hardfork, all exchanges have started to accept and pay Bitcoin Cash for deposits. There was no split, the old chain is dead, all active nodes are on the new chain. A Hardfork can, one might think, be a method to upgrade a blockchain network - if you do not make a drama of it
Yesterday, all stock exchanges and marketplaces that run Bitcoin Cash (BCH) have suspended deposits and withdrawals in that currency. After BCH's price had doubled over the weekend, it was Hardfork time again for the Bitcoin Fork Coin, which is currently causing such a stir in the markets.
The Fork itself was not really controversial: everyone agrees that you have to get rid of the old Mining Difficulty algorithm. It has served its purpose - ensuring the survival of the Bitcoin cash chain - but puts the network in a permanent state of transition between a frozen and an overheated activity. A new algorithm is needed, the faster the better.
More controversial was the decision-making: The lead developer of BitcoinABC, Amaury Séchet, has set a hardfork for November 13 and proposed a new algorithm. Other developers, such as XT or Unlimited, have published further suggestions, which were then discussed in the mailing list. Just at the moment when the mailing list seemed to agree that the algorithm proposed by Tom Harding of XT works best, Séchet released a new release of ABC - with its algorithm. He later explained that he had to do this because the time for discussion had expired.
The Bitcoin cash community was not happy about it. She grumbled, but succumbed. After all, everybody agreed that the new algorithm was better than the old one and a big step forward. Politicians should not be worth delaying or forcing a necessary hardfork. So every important bitcoin cash client has implemented the fork besides ABC - Unlimited, XT and Electron Cash. A chip split was not expected.
The Fork was set to a certain time: "If the median time of the last 11 blocks is greater than or equal to the UNIX Timestamp 1510600000," the new rules apply, according to the documentation of Fork. A "Unix Timestamp" is a somewhat nerdy way to specify a time; it refers to seconds after January 1, 1970, UTC. If you convert that, the Hardfork was clocked on yesterday from about 19 clock.
However, since there was one block at this time, which took two hours to wait, and a few more hesitant sequence blocks, the new Difficulty algorithm did not come into effect until about 10pm.
What exactly does the new algorithm do? It adjusts the difficulty of mining every new block, based on a moving average of the block intervals of the last 144 blocks. Due to several tests, the Bitcoin Cash developers assume that this will keep the block intervals at about 600 seconds. So far, the block production has indeed stabilized compared to before, but is still a bit away from landing regularly at about 600 seconds. But it is believed that this will settle over the next few days.
In addition, the Hardfork takes two changes from Cores SegWit BIP146. Namely, LOW_S signatures and Nullfail are activated. I have no idea what that is exactly, but it supposedly eliminates some forms of third-party malleability. The same changes are already active in the Bitcoin network.
A good 12 hours after Hardfork, all exchanges have started to accept and pay Bitcoin Cash for deposits. There was no split, the old chain is dead, all active nodes are on the new chain. A Hardfork can, one might think, be a method to upgrade a blockchain network - if you do not make a drama of it
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