One of the innovations of Emperor Nakamoto’s Bitcoin is the “consensus” mechanism, which let’s everybody do whatever they want, ultimately settling on the most agreed version of reality to be the consensus reality [2].
This mechanism makes updating the software a weird and wacky process. A proposed new version is completely implemented and deployed, and then users either use it or not. If enough people pick up the new code, it becomes the official version. But people can continue to use the old version, effectively “forking” off an alterative version of the currency, and a new branch of alternative history.
What a way to run a railroad!
In the Bitcoin world, one of the most notorious “splitters” is Bitcoin Cash (a deliberately confusing name), which split from the original Bitcoin circa 2017, implementing larger block sizes. There has been a second split, driven by perennial pest Craig Wright, to create Bitcoin SV. (“SV” stands for “Satoshi’s Vision”—Wright himself claims to be Satoshi, so you can parse that how you want.). And, to boot, earlier this year the BCash people fixed an oopsie by deliberately subverting the consensus protocol to rewrite history. (That is not supposed to be possible.)
These earlier splits were deliberate, driven by disagreements among developers and users.
This month Bitcoin Cash experienced an unexplained fork.
There was a scheduled software upgrade which was not backward compatible. Most of the users picked up the change as expected, but at least one large mining operation did not upgrade. This means that the mystery miners are crunching away, still adding records to the old branch instead of the new, creating a new fork of Bitcoin Cash, and generally sowing confusion.
Sigh.
It isn’t clear who is doing this or why. As William Foxley puts it “Unknown Mining Pool Continues Old Chain” [1]. This could be an accident. It could be deliberate. Who knows?
Whatever the reason, this fork is a hazard for users who might accidentally use the old branch instead of the new. And it is a pain for developers who might have to support both versions, adding to the confusion of the crypto world. On the other hand, so far as we know, the old branch isn’t being maintained anymore, so bugs are not being fixed, ports aren’t being kept up, and the two branches will soon diverge even farther as changes are made to one and not the other.
This definitely is not the way to run a railroad!
Bcash and its dysfunctional family are certainly in the running for the 2019 CryptoTulip of the Year, though Libra may stomp everybody.
- William Foxley (2019) As Bitcoin Cash Hard Forks, Unknown Mining Pool Continues Old Chain. Coindesk, https://www.coindesk.com/as-bitcoin-cash-hard-forks-unknown-mining-pool-continues-old-chain
- Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. 2009. http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf
Cryptocurrency Thursday
Robert McGrath's Blog 