Author: Mark Friedenbach 2015-09-29 14:59:46
Published on: 2015-09-29T14:59:46+00:00
The discussion on the possibility of hard forks causing a split in the Bitcoin network is ongoing among developers. At a threshold of 75%, it only takes 25.01% of the hashpower to report but not actually enforce the fork, which can cause the majority hashpower to remain on the old chain. However, for upgraded clients to start rejecting the old chain, the same threshold needs to be at 95%. BIP 66 showed this concern to be real. There is a possibility that some ideologically opposed to changes may continue to use the old version successfully as long as there are enough miners to keep the fork alive. However, Gavin Andresen suggests that it would not work if a small percentage of miners refuse to go along with the majority. If an exchange supports that small percentage and lets people trade coins from the fork, the result could be a huge free-fall in price as everybody rushes to get some free money from anybody willing to pay them to remain ideologically pure. The result could be enormously long transaction confirmation times, a huge transaction backlog, and a massive price drop for coins on the fork.
Updated on: 2023-06-10T23:27:43.833035+00:00