Bitcoin ABC

Hash War: Mystery Miner’s Empty Block Attack Makes ABC’s New Blockchain Almost Unusable

28/11/2020 by Idelto Editor

According to various reports, the Bitcoin ABC pro-IFP chain has been under ‘attack’ for a number of consecutive days now. The mystery miner has been mining a great number of sequential blocks, but almost all of them have been empty. The miner who calls himself ‘Voluntarism.dev’ says the mining operation is a group of “old-guard miners,” and claims they can mess with the minority ABC chain for years.

** This article has been updated at 6:15 p.m. (EST) on November 28, in order to reflect recent comments from Blockchair’s founder, Nikita Zhavoronkov, who has stated there have been at least six blockchain reorgs on the ABC’s nameless chain to-date, since the node forked off on November 15, 2020.

‘The Price of Freedom Is Steep’

The cryptocurrency community has been watching the aftermath of the recent blockchain bifurcation, which saw the Bitcoin ABC node fork into its own blockchain. The Bitcoin ABC network is still nameless and without branding, and the token is often referred to as either “ABC,” “BCHA,” or “BAB.”

Last week, news.Bitcoin.com reported on a stealth miner who has been mining a large number of consecutive empty blocks. Because blocks have been empty for so long, it’s been hard for anyone to send a transaction on the ABC chain and get the transaction confirmed in a timely manner.

Since our newsdesk’s report, the mystery miner has introduced the group on Twitter under the account name Voluntarism.dev, and through coinbase parameter messages every time the pool finds an ABC block reward. On November 24, 2020, the Voluntarism.dev Twitter account created a message with a blockchain signature in order to verify its legitimacy.

The same day the miner tweeted: “good ideas don’t require force” and the following day the group tweeted a message to other miners pointing hashrate at the ABC chain. Voluntarism.dev said:

I hope all miners agree: we would like 100% of the BCHA coinbase reward to go to pqnqv9lt7e5vjyp0w88zf2af0l92l8rxdgnlxww9j9.

The mystery miner Voluntarism.dev has also taken to Github in order to show that the group is serious about the 100% being sent to the IFP address.

Later on that day, the pool tweeted that “the price of freedom is steep” and also tweeted some screenshots of Bitcoin ABC’s lead developer Amaury Séchet discussing the infrastructure funding plan (IFP).

“ABC violated the (non-aggression principle) NAP with 9 months of civil war,” the Voluntarism.dev Twitter account stressed in another tweet. “Freeriders must pay 100% of the block reward to ABC. We will orphan all blocks that do not. We will pay 100% as well, once ABC merges this change,” the pool added.

In another statement Voluntarism.dev said:

The amount of value that ABC stole from [Bitcoin Cash] pales in comparison to our expenditures. We are a group of old-guard miners and whales. We can do this for years. Next time you fork: use your own genesis block, your own PoW [algorithm], and build your own community. [Bitcoin Cash] is protected.

Meanwhile, between Thursday and Saturday, it took more than 24 hours before any ABC pro-IFP transactions cleared, and the blockchain has suffered a total of two blockchain reorganizations (reorg) to-date. This means after a block has been mined by a miner other than Voluntarism.dev, it’s been reverted and the once confirmed blocks simply disappear. On Saturday morning, there was an attempt to reorg the ABC chain a third time, but it was reverted by the pool Mining Dutch. The mining pool Mining Dutch has managed to process thousands of transactions for senders on Saturday early afternoon (EST).

@yhaiyang idea for you. dump your BCHA holdings into your own customer buy walls, then make it worth $0 (per your risk warning) https://t.co/ZFHg17KDZz pic.twitter.com/dVFy4m4rWG

— voluntarism.dev (@DevVoluntarism) November 27, 2020

Spawn Camp Attack or Enforced Consensus Mechanism?

On November 28, 2020, the cofounder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin tweeted about the mystery mining pool that controls 90% of the ABC chain’s hashpower today. “ [A] mining pool 51% attacks BCHA seemingly with the explicit goal of destroying it. Will this be the first true spawn camp attack on a PoW chain?” Buterin asked his Twitter followers.

However, the recent empty block attacker is not the first true spawn camp attack on a PoW chain. A Bitcoin clone called Coiledcoin appeared in 2012 and it has been said that it was also attacked by hashrate. The BTC community accused the Core developer, Luke Dash Jr., of leveraging the mining pool Eligius in order to takedown the Coiledcoin project. Software developer Peter Todd spoke about the event on Twitter in 2016 when ethereum classic (ETC) was threatened by a 51% attack.

On Friday, in a reply to Buterin’s tweet about the mystery miner, BCH proponent, and researcher, Javier González explained that the mining pool’s technique was not an attack. “It is not an attack, it is defensive,” González said. “Bitcoin ABC has fractured the BCH project to capture 8% of the coinbase miners incentive. 90% of the BCH [hashpower] voted against it. And now they are defending their interests. Enforced consensus mechanism,” González insisted.

News.Bitcoin.com spoke with González on Saturday, while the third blockchain reorg attempt took place. González is also the inventor of the Bitcoin Mining Parliament (BMP), a concept that confronts Bitcoin Cash network issues using Nakamoto Consensus.

During the morning hours (EST), the mining pools Viabtc and Mining Dutch mined blocks 662396 and 662397. Both of these blocks confirmed thousands of transactions, but again, Voluntarism.dev reorganized the chain with its massive hashpower and the blocks disappeared. González sources data from the block explorer Blockchair and also runs his own ABC pro-IFP node. Although not too long after, confrontational hashpower was able to stop Voluntarism.dev’s third reorg attempt.

“The first empty block + reorg attack to destroy a minority split attempt (BAB/BCHA/ABC) is occurring,” González told news.Bitcoin.com on Saturday. “I think they are a group of miners and BCH whales that are acting in coordination to defend the [Bitcoin Cash] blockchain from the split caused by Bitcoin ABC (Amaury) to capture the 8% of the coinbase incentive that belongs to the miners. González further added:

Basically, Amaury believes it has the right to break up the project and take the 8% (who knows how much in the future). But that is being denied by hashwar.

Mystery Miner’s Third Attempt to Reorg ABC Met With Confrontational Hashpower

González also said that the ABC chain only has two mitigations; either selectively ignore hashpower (total centrality) or change the algorithm in emergency. The researcher further highlighted that the ABC chain has no use and that markets may have to delist the coin. While the mystery miner empties blocks it is also optimizing the assault by making it cheaper González detailed.

“What we are seeing is what I call ‘executive mining.’ That is, it is not ‘automatic mining’ following the market incentive, but the miners are following their own brains, spending money, thinking of a bigger future incentive (in this case, it seems to be the defense of BCH),” González emphasized.

While conversing with the researcher another two blocks were mined by the pool Mining Dutch. González said that the mystery miner Voluntarism.dev is now being confronted in the hash war. “A large amount of hashrate has reversed the reorg, protecting BAB,” González detailed. Currently, there have been two successful reorganizations and one failed attempt on Saturday morning.

After the two blocks were found by Mining Dutch, Voluntarism.dev mined four blocks after that, the pool said the confrontational hashpower was a “bully” in the following coinbase message. Following the four blocks mined by Voluntarism.dev (662412, 662413, 662414, 662415), Mining Dutch got another two blocks and managed to process transactions.

Blockchair’s engine has caught a total of six blockchain reorgs since the initial fork. This is a screenshot of the node log shared by Blockchair founder, Nikita Zhavoronkov on November 28, 2020.

** At 6:15 p.m. (EST) Blockchair founder, Nikita Zhavoronkov, said his team has caught a total of six blockchain reorganizations on the ABC chain so far.

“So far our engine has caught 6 reorgs on BCHA orphaning 12 blocks in total. Two 1-block reorgs on November 25th, two 2-block reorgs on 26th, a 2-block reorg on 28th, and a 4-block reorg on 28th,” Zhavoronkov tweeted. Actually there’ve been [many] more reorgs, they just happen very fast and our engine misses that. I guess I’d need some kind of a separate log parser for more precise numbers,” Zhavoronkov added.

As of right now, BCH supporters and ABC proponents will be watching the chain with their eyes peeled. So far, it seems the chain is far from functional and the network’s existence going forward is uncertain.

What do you think about the hash war and the mystery miner? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

The post Hash War: Mystery Miner’s Empty Block Attack Makes ABC’s New Blockchain Almost Unusable appeared first on Bitcoin News.

A Step-by-Step Guide to Splitting ABC Fork Tokens from Bitcoin Cash

27/11/2020 by Idelto Editor

On November 15, the Bitcoin Cash blockchain underwent a scheduled upgrade but also the chain saw a consensus split, and the network bisected into two. After the split, numerous users have been looking for methods in order to split their coins in order to store them separately or sell the unwanted tokens on an exchange. The following is a step-by-step guide on how to split forked tokens by leveraging a few different tools.

Splitting Coins from the Bitcoin Cash Network Fork Using Electron Cash Version 4.2.0

In mid-November, just like every year before, the Bitcoin Cash network upgraded in order to fix the difficulty adjustment algorithm (DAA). But just like in 2018, there was a major disagreement, as the full node client Bitcoin ABC decided to implement the infrastructure funding plan (IFP) into the node’s codebase. Since this decision did not align well with the community and mining participants, the ABC pro-IFP chain forked away from Bitcoin Cash and became its own network.

At the time of publication, the ABC pro-IFP chain is still nameless, and it is often referred to as “BCHA” or “BAB.” For consistency and clarity within this guide, the ABC pro-IFP chain will be referred to as “BCHA.” Following the fork and the recent run of empty blocks from a mysterious miner, I decided to split my coins into two, so I can sell what I don’t want in a week or so.

People have posted a few different ways to split coins and Bitcoinbch.com’s CEO, Hayden Otto, published a video on how to split tokens in an easy fashion by leveraging the Coinex exchange. Check out his video below as the process is simpler, but bear in mind, Coinex is a custodial exchange.

The method I followed, originally stemmed from the web portal keepbitcoinfree.org but I decided to do it just a hair differently. Days before the fork, I moved bitcoin cash (BCH) from a hardware wallet over to a noncustodial Bitpay wallet. After the split, I downloaded a noncustodial Bitcoin.com Wallet and Electron Cash (EC) version 4.2.0 from the project’s Github repository.

The 4.2.0 version of EC allows the user to switch between servers, which gives people the opportunity to split their coins. After firing up the 4.2.0 EC release, I decided to create a new wallet called “Splitting Time.” I used the 12-word seed phrase given to me when I created my Bitpay wallet to restore my BCH funds into the newly created “Splitting Time” wallet. If you don’t need to restore your wallet and you already leverage the Electron Cash wallet version 4.2.0, then you can skip to the splitting section of this article.

I simply selected the “file” tab at the top left side of the wallet and scrolled down to “new/restore.” From here I named the new BCH wallet “Splitting Time” and selected “standard wallet.” After pressing “next,” I then selected “I already have a seed” and again pressed “next” to continue the process. Now a number of wallets have different approaches to derivation paths, but I was aware that Bitpay leverages the BIP39 version of mnemonic seed phrases. After selecting “I already have a seed,” the next step was to type the 12-word phrase into the box with spaces.

You should never do this process if you are afraid that your computer has malware or if other people are around. It is wise to be completely alone when doing this process as the 12-word mnemonic word list is basically your private key, and it can give anyone access to the funds. Before typing the seed, knowing that my Bitpay wallet leverages BIP39, I selected the “options” tab below the window in order to toggle a BIP39 restoration process.

Bitcoin.com Wallet owners can also follow this step as the noncustodial client also uses BIP39. The options window allows you to select “force BIP39 interpretation of this seed and if the seed phrase is not correct the checksum will say “failed.” However, after I entered the seed phrase correctly, the Electron Cash client told me the checksum was good.

The Splitting Process by Leveraging Both Networks

From here, I pressed “next” and my Bitpay wallet was successfully imported into the EC client instantly. The next thing I did was check the network settings, in order to access the BCHA side of the chain. I went to the upper section of the wallet and selected “tools” and scroll down to the section that says “network…” and selected that option.

A window pops up and from here I selected the “server” tab in order to type “electrum.bitcoinabc.org” and port “50002” into the server section.

After setting the network to “electrum.bitcoinabc.org” the overview section will tell you a “chain split [was] detected at block 661648” and that my server is on “branch 4284c9d8b2.” Branch 4284c9d8b2 is the server you leverage to interact with the BCHA chain.

After noticing that my coins were accessible on both chains, I moved back to the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) server by leveraging the server called “bch.cyberbits.eu.” Now the keepbitcoinfree.org guide tells the user to select two addresses from the wallet’s address section and label each one of them for each separate network. Instead, I fired up my Bitcoin.com Wallet and grabbed a fresh new BCH address in order to have a place to send my funds.

In order to send my bitcoin cash (BCH), I made sure my wallet was set to “bch.cyberbits.eu” branch 29e471c418 and sent the small fraction of BCH to the Bitcoin.com Wallet. While waiting for a single confirmation, I moved back to the BCHA side and observed that there were no transactions sent from my BCHA coins.

After feeling confident everything was working smoothly, I jumped back over to the “bch.cyberbits.eu” branch 29e471c418 (the Bitcoin Cash network) in order to send the remainder of my funds to the Bitcoin.com Wallet. I simply used the same address from my initial test send and pressed “max” on the EC client in order to send all the funds.

Again, while waiting for one confirmation on the BCH chain I switched over to branch 4284c9d8b2 “electrum.bitcoinabc.org,” and noticed again that all BCHA coins remained in the wallet. From here I completed the objective I wanted to accomplish for now.

Split Process Takes Less Than 30 Minutes

My BCHA is now resting in the wallet until I decide what to do with the tokens and my BCH is secure in my new noncustodial wallet.

After splitting the coins at this point, I can send the funds to any exchange, any time I want. As I mentioned above there are a few other ways the process can be followed, and not only can users send the funds to an exchange that supports BCHA, but they can also leverage a noncustodial wallet from the web portal abc-wallet.fullstack.cash.

Additionally, the Bitcoin ABC development team created and announced a noncustodial wallet as well called Electrum ABC. Bitcoin ABC developer Antony Zegers also published a guide on how to split coins leveraging the Electron Cash wallet and the new Electrum ABC client.

Only split coins if you are 100% comfortable with the process and understand that the procedure takes patience. Also, remember that step-by-step walkthrough editorials are intended for informational purposes only. There are multiple security risks and methods that are ultimately made by the decisions of the user. There are various steps mentioned in news.Bitcoin.com reviews and splitting guides and some of them are optional.

What do you think about splitting coins and the process involved? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

The post A Step-by-Step Guide to Splitting ABC Fork Tokens from Bitcoin Cash appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Slow and Empty Blocks With a Mysterious Message – ABC’s New Chain Off to a Rocky Start

22/11/2020 by Idelto Editor

On November 15, 2020, the Bitcoin Cash blockchain experienced a network upgrade and a bifurcation of the chain as well. While the Bitcoin Cash network continued on smoothly, the ABC pro infrastructure funding plan (IFP) side of the chain had a rocky and extremely slow start. Since the 15th, the nameless ABC chain has seen 197 blocks processed to-date, as a few miners are pointing hashrate at the network keeping the new blockchain going.

Just recently Bitcoin Cash (BCH) endured a network upgrade and a consensus split when the full node project Bitcoin ABC decided to keep the IFP baked into the code. The IFP was very contentious and during the months leading up to the fork, miners and major business operations began switching over to the non-IFP node BCHN and other full node implementations.

The last Bitcoin Cash common block on November 15, 2020, was at block height 661,647 and was mined by Binance. After that point at approximately 12:33 p.m. EST, the ABC pro-IFP side continued on as its own chain, as two distinct blocks were mined. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) was 20 blocks ahead of the ABC chain at this point in time that afternoon.

As of today, the ABC chain has processed 197 blocks, as miners have dedicated a diminutive amount of SHA256 hashrate to the alternative network. Coin Dance statistics show the ABC airdrop coin has roughly 0.13 exahash per second (EH/s), while BCH has 1.93 EH/s dedicated to the Bitcoin Cash chain.

While ABC’s side found 197 blocks, BCH miners have found 1093 blocks under the new consensus rules. At the time of publication, the ABC chain, otherwise known as “BAB,” has three known mining pools pointing hashrate at the chain. Viabtc, BCHA Pro, and Mining-Dutch are mining the coin, alongside a much larger hashrate of stealth miners.

The majority of BAB hashpower is making empty blocks.

With a coinbase message that says:
/Nov 25th 2020/

— Reorg risk warning in BAB/BCHA/ABC — pic.twitter.com/5SskQ9dw8H

— Javier González González (@JavierGonzalez) November 21, 2020

More than 79% of the ABC airdrop’s network is being mined by an unknown group of miners. During the last 24 hours, the unknown hashrate has been mining consecutive empty blocks. The empty ABC chain blocks also had a coinbase parameter message that once said: “/Nov 25th 2020/.” Although, that coinbase message has changed in recent hours.

On Sunday, Bitcoin Cash proponent Javier González tweeted that the BAB chain was at extreme risk of a blockchain reorganization (reorg). “The BAB empty blocks now include this message: ‘> Nov 25th 2020: bcha dump |voluntarism.dev:6174 u/p: x/x,’” González wrote.

The $BCHA miner that previously mined empty blocks is now also signalling “Nov 25th 2020: bcha dump”. The chain is being attacked for over a day now. And it’s super cheap to attack it — for example, a 51% attack would cost just ~$300 an hour at the current hashrate. pic.twitter.com/go9rYSmHzA

— Nikita Zhavoronkov (@nikzh) November 22, 2020

A great number of people are speculating on something happening on November 25th, but no one knows what to expect. Yesterday, during the market run-up, BCHA (ABC chain or BAB) was trading for $21 in USDT per coin and on Sunday, the token is swapping for $18.93 per unit on Coinex. If prices were to hover around $18.93 per BAB coin, the token’s overall market cap would be around $350 million. This estimated market valuation would place the nameless ABC chain’s token at the 47th position in terms of market cap.

Meanwhile, a number of crypto enthusiasts have been posting threads on how to split coins. Bitcoinbch.com’s CEO, Hayden Otto, published a video on how to split tokens in an easy fashion by leveraging the Coinex exchange. However, because the unknown miner has been mining empty blocks and the blockchain is much slower than other networks, ABC chain confirmation times can be a very long wait.

Furthermore, on November 20, 2020, the Bitcoin ABC official Twitter account tweeted about the new chain. The team explained that an official brand launch would be coming soon.

“BCHA will soon be branded with an official coin name, logo, and ticker. When it launches we’ll reach out to exchanges and other businesses directly to make them aware,” the ABC team disclosed in a blog post. Unfortunately, the nameless chain has no replay protection, and ABC developers have casually addressed the concern by simply stating: “Splitting the coins can be tricky, so take care.”

What do you think about the ABC chain’s developments and the new network? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

The post Slow and Empty Blocks With a Mysterious Message – ABC’s New Chain Off to a Rocky Start appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Hash Watch: The Highly Anticipated Bitcoin Cash Fork Is Now Complete

15/11/2020 by Idelto Editor

The Bitcoin Cash community has been patiently waiting for weeks for the November 15, 2020 upgrade and the day is finally here. Every six months the Bitcoin Cash network upgrades, but this time around, a conflict sparked over Bitcoin ABC’s Infrastructure Funding Plan (IFP). During the course of the day, the following editorial will be monitoring the Bitcoin Cash upgrade in real-time so our readers can be kept up to date.

**Last update 11/15/20 @ 2:19 p.m. EST**

Shortly after 12:00 p.m., UTC on November 15, 2020, Bitcoin Cash experienced a scheduled upgrade. Bitcoin Cash developers from various full node projects changed the Difficulty Adjustment Algorithm (DAA) to a new DAA called ‘aserti3-2d‘ (or ‘ASERT’ for short).

The aserti3-2d Github description details that people can get a “high-level description of the motivation and background” for ASERT by reading the programmer Jonathan Toomim’s read.cash article. Specifications for ASERT can be read here on the Bitcoin Cash upgrade specifications web portal.

As usual, Bitcoin Cash supporters watched the upgrade in real-time by leveraging the web portal Coin Dance. The website has maintained a countdown clock for the upgrade, information, and it displays three full node software clients in three separate sections. Additionally, the fork monitor operated by the derivatives exchange Bitmex has also been monitoring the fork.

The data shown on Coin Dance includes the full node clients’ Bitcoin Unlimited, Bitcoin Cash Node (BCHN), and Bitcoin ABC. Coin Dance stats say BCH Unlimited 1.9.0.1 will follow the longest chain. Bitcoin Cash Node (BCHN) 22.1.0 will follow the longest chain, unless the 10-block re-org protection is violated. Bitcoin ABC 0.22.4 will follow the chain that complies with the Infrastructure Funding Plan (IFP).

Because Bitcoin ABC stuck with implementing the IFP, it is expected to produce two incompatible networks. Every full node client, except for ABC’s IFP version, will be agreeing on the same rules. Bitcoin cash (BCH) users should see a smooth transition, but they may see an airdropped coin if miners decide to mine the ABC software that introduces the controversial IFP mechanism.

At approximately 6:55 a.m. EST, at Bitcoin Cash (BCH) block height 661,641 the upgrade was initiated. Following block 661,641, six more blocks needed to be mined for the upgrade to go live on the network. The last Bitcoin Cash common block was at block height 661,647 and was mined by Binance.

The live stream crypto show hosted by Collin Enstad will be broadcasting live today on November 15 with Mike Komaransky and the show will be covering the airdrop all day on Youtube with a number of special guests.

News.Bitcoin.com readers can check out prior articles on this subject here, here, here, and this article here. Those editorials not only explain the situation at hand, but also wallet and exchange contingency plans. A number of wallets and exchanges plan to support both tokens in the event of a split, while other third-party services have revealed only supporting one side.

During the morning hours before fork activation, the crypto trading exchange Coinex changed the futures market from BCHN and BCHA to BCH and BCHA to represent the split. At the time of publication, spot prices for Bitcoin Cash (BCH) on Coinex are $243 per unit while ABC’s airdrop token is $15.82 per unit. On Poloniex the ABC airdrop is swapping for $14 against USDT pairs, and on Coinflex ABC is trading for $11 per unit.

Software developer Christ Troutner announced the launch of a website that hosts a splitting tool and the alpha web-based tool at splitbch.com will be available after the upgrade is settled. Troutner also published a demo of the splitbch splitting tool on Youtube. However, as of right now, at 10:37 a.m. EST, the ABC side of the fork has not seen a single mined block.

As of 10:28 a.m. EST, ten blocks have been mined under the new Bitcoin Cash consensus rules. There have been zero Bitcoin ABC blocks mined so far since the fork initiated after the last common block.

As of right now, there doesn’t seem to be a coin-split token for the ABC-IFP side with the chain showing zero functionality. (10:37 a.m. EST). Twelve BCH blocks under the new consensus rules have been mined at this time. With no split, it means that BCH simply upgraded and a node fell out of consensus. A valid block has to be mined for the ABC-IFP side to continue as a viable chain.

At approximately 12:33 p.m. EST, the ABC-IFP side has two mined blocks while the BCH chain is 20 blocks ahead. According to stats, an unknown miner has mined block 661,648 and 661,649 on the ABC-IFP side. This means there was a split, but people will have to continue monitoring the airdrop (ABC-IFP side) to see if the chain remains functional over time.

** 2:19 p.m. EST Update ** So far there are approximately three ABC-IFP blocks mined, while Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is 27 blocks ahead. According to the Redditor u/grmpfpff, an unknown mining pool dubbed “very good mining pool” is mining the ABC-IFP side of the fork. “The miner needed almost 2 hours to find block 661,668, then one hour to find block 661,669,” the post details. “Difficulty on that side of the fork is slowly decreasing as a logical result, from 226446058610.77 at block 661,667 to 220458728602.59 at block 661,669,” the Redditor added.

The Reddit post concludes by noting the BCH community will have to wait and see if: “the unknown pool continues mining alone, if more pools will switch over or if the miner stops and the chain freezes as a result.” Meanwhile, the Bitcoin Cash community has been celebrating the upgrade and smooth transition in a number of other posts on r/btc.

The top post on Reddit this afternoon is called “A Historic Moment for Bitcoin Cash and Crypto” and many BCH fans believe they are victorious.

“Today all participants of the BCH ecosystem should be extremely proud,” writes the Redditor u/BU-BCH on Sunday’s top r/btc post. “Bitcoin Cash has done something no other cryptocurrency ecosystem has achieved. We have managed to not only successfully reject a corruption of the protocol, but also removed power from a centralized development team and rejected a centralized ‘official’ (not official) website. Bitcoin Cash is now stronger, more unified and more decentralised than ever before.”

What do you think about the completion of the Bitcoin Cash upgrade and the split? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

The post Hash Watch: The Highly Anticipated Bitcoin Cash Fork Is Now Complete appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Bitcoin Cash Might Split Again This Weekend. This Is Why (And How)

13/11/2020 by Idelto Editor

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) might split again this weekend.

The Bitcoin ABC software client forked away from the Bitcoin protocol in mid-2017 to form a cryptocurrency of its own: Bitcoin Cash. Since then, Bitcoin Cash has deployed a backwards-incompatible hard fork upgrade every six months, requiring a network-wide upgrade across all Bitcoin Cash clients. While most of these upgrades have gone through relatively smoothly, a conflict within the Bitcoin Cash community in 2018 resulted in a split between Bitcoin Cash (the side that kept the original name) and Bitcoin SV.

Now, two years later (on November 15, 12:00 UTC, to be precise), another hard fork upgrade and another dispute within the Bitcoin Cash community could once again result in a coin-split.

What Is The Dispute? (And Between Who?)

At the heart of the dispute is an upgrade called the Infrastructure Funding Plan (IFP). The IFP would, as a protocol rule, enforce that 8 percent of every block reward — the coins earned by miners — is delegated to software projects working on Bitcoin Cash, like Bitcoin ABC.

According to the Bitcoin ABC team, the IFP — sometimes also referred to as the “miner tax” — would be designated through a new organization called the Global Network Council, consisting of major miners and holders of the cryptocurrency. The Global Network Council is scheduled to meet for the first time in January 2021, but beyond that, not very many specifics have been revealed about the selection of members or the procedure to distribute funds.

Bitcoin Cash Node — a software fork of Bitcoin ABC — is an initiative by various Bitcoin Cash developers and users who oppose the IFP, and have removed the upgrade from their source code.

There are a few different reasons the IFP is controversial. Some reject the upgrade on philosophical grounds, as they believe a “miner tax” is incompatible with Bitcoin Cash’s (or Bitcoin’s) philosophy and original design. If miners earn fewer coins when mining a block, this should also result in a decrease in hash power securing the network. Other concerns with the IFP include the lack of specifics regarding the distribution of funds, and they believe the setup may end up benefiting Bitcoin ABC more than other clients. Bitcoin ABC’s attempt to push the change through despite community opposition is also a concern in itself.

Does The Hard Fork Include Any Other Protocol Changes?

Yes, both Bitcoin ABC and Bitcoin Node will deploy a new difficulty adjustment algorithm.

New Bitcoin Cash blocks (like Bitcoin blocks) should be found about once every 10 minutes on average. However, due to Bitcoin Cash sharing a mining algorithm with Bitcoin, some Bitcoin miners occasionally switch to mining Bitcoin Cash when that blockchain is more profitable to mine. Because Bitcoin Cash usually has a mere fraction of Bitcoin’s hash power, such a switch results in big swings in the amount of hash power on Bitcoin Cash. This in turn results in periodic bursts where blocks are found much faster than once every 10 minutes, followed by a jump in difficulty. The switched miners then return to mining Bitcoin, leaving the original Bitcoin Cash miners behind on a chain that is now less profitable. Moreover, the sharp decrease in hash power tends to result in a much slower rate of block production. The hash power swings make the pace of transaction confirmation on Bitcoin Cash less reliable.

To help stabilize the pace of block production, the Bitcoin ABC team originally proposed a new difficulty adjustment algorithm called Grasberg. Grasberg would include an additional change however: block production would intentionally be slowed down for a few years to correct for “historical drift.” (For a couple of reasons, including a previous difficulty algorithm, Bitcoin Cash blocks have so far been mined faster than originally scheduled.)

The additional historic drift correction was controversial within the Bitcoin Cash community, however. This was, in fact, the original motivation behind the launch of Bitcoin Cash Node, which includes an alternative difficulty adjustment algorithm called ASERT. (ASERT is also new, though it predates Grasberg and was initially rejected by the Bitcoin ABC team.)

The Bitcoin ABC team eventually conceded to the implementation of ASERT, however, thus dropping Grasberg. This means that Bitcoin Cash ABC and Bitcoin Cash Node will be compatible — except for the IFP.

Why Has Bitcoin ABC Released Two Versions Of Its Software Client?

Late last week, Bitcoin ABC announced that it will in fact release two versions of Bitcoin ABC. One version of the software will enforce the IFP protocol rule as planned. Another version, however, will not, and will therefore be fully compatible with Bitcoin Cash Node.

The Bitcoin ABC team will only work to realize its development road map on the version of their software that enforces the IFP protocol rule, however. (This road map includes a flexible block size limit and decreasing the risk that unconfirmed transactions are double-spent, among other things.) The version without the IFP protocol rule will be minimally maintained to remain compatible with Bitcoin Cash Node, without further improvements.

Is A Coin-Split Guaranteed?

Not quite.

First of all, it’s worth noting that Bitcoin Cash clients (both Bitcoin ABC and Bitcoin Cash Node) are programmed to abort the current protocol, so a hard fork upgrade is more or less necessary. The current version of Bitcoin Cash will almost certainly not live on.

And obviously, if either Bitcoin ABC or Bitcoin Cash Node fails to attract enough hash power to produce a valid blockchain at all, there will be no coin-split. Only the version that attracts sufficient hash power would live on.

A coin split would in fact only happen if both the Bitcoin ABC and Bitcoin Cash Node sides attract enough hash power to produce a viable blockchain, as long as Bitcoin Cash Node attracts more than half of the total hash power between the two.

There is one other interesting scenario where a coin-split is avoided. If Bitcoin ABC attracts more than half of all hash power between the two (and maintains this majority), Bitcoin Cash Node clients would actually follow the Bitcoin ABC blockchain. This is because the new Bitcoin ABC software would be a soft fork in respect of Bitcoin Cash Node. Its protocol rules are the same, but with the IFP rule as an added restriction.

Put differently, Bitcoin Cash Node clients will accept it if a portion of the block reward is delegated to a Global Network Council (or to anyone else), they just won’t require that this happens. Blocks that don’t delegate the IFP funds would in this scenario be rejected by a majority of miners, and therefore not make it into the blockchain at all, ensuring compatibility.

(There are some more complicated scenarios, with new hard forks, that could also lead to a coin-split — but these are less likely and beyond the scope of this article.)

What Is Likely To Happen?

Currently, Bitcoin Cash Node has much more hash power support than Bitcoin ABC: more than 80 percent at the time of writing this article, versus less than 1 percent for Bitcoin ABC. Bitcoin Cash Node also appears to have significantly more community support, and large Bitcoin Cash-supporting companies like Coinbase, Kraken and BitGo have also indicated support for Bitcoin Cash Node. It therefore seems likely that (the name) Bitcoin Cash will live on through Bitcoin Cash Node and the compatible version of Bitcoin ABC. (It would then probably also receive the “BCH” ticker on most exchanges, though some may opt for “BCHN” or another variant.)

Whether (the IFP version of) Bitcoin ABC will attract enough hash power to produce a viable blockchain remains to be seen. But if it does, it will have one strategic advantage over Bitcoin Cash Node. If it attracts more hash power than Bitcoin Cash Node, even after the split has occurred (but only up until ten blocks), the Bitcoin Cash Node blockchain would (in theory) “collapse,” and essentially disappear as Bitcoin Cash Node clients would accept the Bitcoin ABC blockchain instead. Any coins mined on the Bitcoin Cash Node blockchain, and any coins received on the Bitcoin Cash Node blockchain, would disappear with it. If Bitcoin ABC attracts enough hash power to even just make this a viable scenario, it might undermine trust in Bitcoin Cash Node, potentially only helping Bitcoin ABC further. (In practice, however, this unlikely scenario could itself be countered by the Bitcoin Cash Node scenario through another protocol upgrade.)

All things considered, however, it seems most likely that Bitcoin Cash Node will live on as “Bitcoin Cash,” and Bitcoin ABC will create a “new” cryptocurrency, most likely to also be called “Bitcoin ABC” (and probably with the ticker “BAB”).

I Hold BCH. Do I Need To Do Anything?

If you hold the private keys yourself, you don’t need to do anything. If a split happens, you will have access to both coins. (You might have to upgrade to new client/wallet software, depending on your client/wallet software.)

You might want to hold off from sending coins shortly before and after the hard fork happens, however. Because neither Bitcoin Cash ABC nor Bitcoin Cash Node implemented replay protection, sending one of the coins could accidentally result in sending the equivalent on the other blockchain. To be sure this doesn’t happen, wait until there is more clarity on this issue.

You might also want to hold off from receiving coins on the Bitcoin Cash Node blockchain. Although the risk seems slim, this blockchain could potentially “collapse” into the Bitcoin ABC blockchain if the latter attracts more hash power, and the coins you received will disappear with it. To be absolutely sure this doesn’t happen, wait until there is more clarity on this issue.

If you hold your coins on an exchange (or another custodial service) and a split occurs, the exchange determines whether you receive both coins, or one of them (and which one). Several exchanges have published announcements of their plans, with most supporting the Bitcoin Cash Node side of a potential split, or both. Ask your exchange for more information (or withdraw your coins before the split).

The post Bitcoin Cash Might Split Again This Weekend. This Is Why (And How) appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.