Seems like the old saying "divide et impera" is quite actual. For those not knowing what it means, well, "divide et impera" is a way of winning a battle "from the inside", by dividing a monolithic army into smaller factions that will eventually starting to fight with each other, instead of fighting together against a common enemy.
This seems to happen right now in the Bitcoin community. After Bitcoin Cash, we may witness another hard fork, this time for a currency called "Bitcoin Gold", here's the link to the official website.
As in the first fork, the initiative comes from a mining company, this time located in Hong Kong, called LightningASIC. The first hard fork, if you remember, was orchestrated by combo: mining company + exchange - Bitmain / ViaBTC. Both forks are, then, coming from China.
The value proposition of the new coin will be a new mining algorithm, namely Equihash (if I'm not mistaken, STEEM used to be mineable with this algorithm too, back when it was mineable). Equihash will replace SHA256, the de facto Bitcoin mining algorithm, and it will favor more mainstream mining gear (not only ASICs, that is). A bit strange, if you really think about it: a mining company producing Bitcoin mining equipment, launches a new coin which doesn't needs its equipment. Hmmmm... I wonder if they won't come up, in a few weeks, with a little gimmick in the algorithm that will be only be solvable with a hardware solution...
The way it looks right now, the so called "control" over Bitcoin will follow this route: mining gear producers will start forking the main chain, each one imposing their own hardware, thus trying to weaken the position of the standard currency.
It may or it may not work. But it will certainly create more drama and unnecessary bad PR.
That's why I'm usually interested in different governance systems (PoS/DPoS) than PoW. Proof of Work, as a governance mechanism, is inherently hackable. Maybe not by a direct 51% attack, but by small steps, leading to a much bigger "divide et impera" assault.
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.
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This sounds like some kind of BS scam, I haven't seen any of the major players behind Segwit2x mention any of this.
I completely agree that PoS seems like a much better system. I hope that Ethereum is successful in switching over.
As for all these Bitcoin forks, I think it will end up better off for them. I think it's important for Bitcoin to "get it out of their system" earlier rather than later. If these forks end up being unsuccessful then it will stop happening going forward and force the community to work together and mostly all agree on solutions.
Do you ever see any possibility for Bitcoin to switch to a PoS system? I would think there's benefit in that for the big holders since they obviously have the most stake and it seems like it would completely resolve the scaling issues.
Not again :(
good, thanks 4 sharing
This is where the beauty of the free marktet comes in. If people don't see the value in the fork or if it doesn't gain any backing, support, or sever a purpose then it will just fall on its face.
If it does serve a solution then it will just take a portion of the bitcoin supporters with them making just another altcoin. This isn't bad because whatever bitcoin can stand the test of tim will be the best bitcoin and allows users to have options.
From what I am realizing hard forks are nothing more than another ICO or altcoin being created. It's good for consumers in that we get to choose which one is the best (or what we thing is the best).
Finally, all publicity is good publicity. Drops in price just means the more bitcoin I am able to purchase and part of the reason I'm ramping up my activities here on steemit!
For the most part, I agree with you. That's ok, to have many initiatives on top of the same concept. But please keep in mind there are already hundreds of colored coins on top of Bitcoin - which raises the question: "why would you pay $200 for one Bitcoin Gold, when you have the same type of minting and mining with, let's say, PeerCoin or FlorinCoin?
Hmmmm I wonder if we all get free Bitcoin gold if he already hold Bitcoin .... that is what happened with Bitcoin cash
Yes. The same will happen here if it actually goes through.
https://www.btcforkmonitor.info/
Most likely, yes.
Well this is going to be a shitshow and the price is going to free fall if you ask me!
PoS has it's own problems as well. There's no perfect system. I don't think there is a strategize to weaken the system, but there is a high incentive to make thyself more money. But this is how the ecosystem grows. So far so good!
A company purposely putting themselves out of business? That sounds very fishy to me. Me thinks they have something up their sleeve!
My thoughts exactly.
Their Slack link on their FB page is no longer active. This all seems very suspect. Could be another weird ride. Thanks for sharing!
As far a I understand it, the segwit2x drama could lead to an Bitcoin fork. So we could have 4 bitcoins at the end of the year?
We already have hundreds of Bitcoins, because 80% of altcoins are based on the Bitcoin codebase, they're just branded differently. The new ones have more awareness and more marketing (and probably mining) power behind them.
I was refering more to the name confusion that will appear
omg, stop the madness !! (-:
More drama and bad PR for sure, but look at what happened to BTC after the previous fork; btc price skyrocketed after the fork took place. Do you think that perhaps its possible BTC could benefit in some way from the extra press? Sure I don't think it will be made as big of a deal as before, but maybe the saying Any press is good press might be relevant to our situation. A hodler can only hope.
Oh god not again! But will we get benefited from a Blockchain split like with BCC?
My bitcoin cash bought me some silver steem branded coins, so I'm happy to get some more free money :)
good man, i got one too (-:
How cool are they?
I've never been a stacker, so I'm worried I'm going to get hooked.
well, you might want to beware (-:
Most important about bitcoin post...
Upvoted/ Resteemed
very good post ....
@dragosroua,
Hate to hear BTC with PoS, but hate this PoW drama more than that :/ Not a good information indeed! But thanks friend!
Cheers~
Not again :(
There is just too much money invested in Bitcoin Cash farms... There is no way they're going to interefere with mining. And its a fact.
Great Post!
There we go again :P