Bitcoin hard fork splits cryptocurrency in two

[Greg S]

Due to discrepancies in opinion between Bitcoin miners and developers on how to handle increasing transaction times, the digital currency has split into two separate projects. The original coin will keep its name of "Bitcoin" and the new branch is to be known as "Bitcoin Cash". Update: the split has now happened.

This is a rather peculiar event for a digital currency to go through, although it is not unexpected. A hard fork, the process of duplicating a blockchain and continuing on a separate path, has been expected for several weeks since miners have signaled support for a fork. The miners responsible for processing transactions and generating new Bitcoins ultimately decide which of the two coins to support.

Investors (or gamblers, depending upon your viewpoint) holding Bitcoins will end up with two sets of coins in their wallets. Each will operate completely independently of one another once the split is finalized. Market value of each coin will likely take some time to stabilize as creating a new currency literally overnight can have interesting effects.

With a current market cap of $44.5 billion, Bitcoin is a well established currency that can be used to buy, sell, and trade. Issues regarding anonymity around digital currencies are often valid concerns, but blockchain technologies are rapidly expanding to support very legitimate uses. A hard fork for Bitcoin could be an important historic moment in the development of new concepts created with blockchain in mind.

For those still upset about the shortage of graphics cards such as the RX 580, fear not. Bitcoin mining has been done with specialized hardware for a few years now and no longer creates any demand for high end gaming hardware.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/70388-bitcoin-has-taken-hard-fork-split-two-currencies.html

 

[VitalyT]

Mind boggling these crooks are still at large.

 

[Uncle Al]

Which crooks is he talking about; the ones at bitcoin or the ones at the Federal Reserve Bank??

 

[BSim500]

Mind boggling these crooks are still at large.

It's amusing people still call them "currencies" whilst warning of the "evil Fed's paper fiat's shelf life". Even the Zimbabwe Dollar managed to last 29 years, and getting thrashed 3.5:1x by that is the equivalent of setting a high-jump bar 2 inches off the ground and still failing to even step over it whilst claiming to be an Olympic gold-medallist...

 

[kapital98]

Mind boggling these crooks are still at large.

It's amusing people still call them "currencies" whilst warning of the "evil Fed's paper fiat's shelf life". Even the Zimbabwe Dollar managed to last 29 years, and getting thrashed 3.5:1x by that is the equivalent of setting a high-jump bar 2 inches off the ground and still failing to even step over it whilst claiming to be an Olympic gold-medallist...

Most people who support digital currencies do so for political rather than economic reasons. Suffice to say, this makes for terrible financial decisions for the majority.

Plus, the ideological reasons are not well thought out. Bitcoin has increasingly steered towards self-regulation out of fear of explicit government regulation. The libertarian ideal does not exist and will not exist for Bitcoin. Nor any other digital currency that starts to gain momentum.

It's all very silly but if people wish to tinker, I say let them.

 

[cliffordcooley]

I still think Bitcoin is a big joke. I am not sympathetic to the victims who invested in Bitcoins. Perhaps that is why this fork has come to pass Seems I'm not the only one that may feel this way.

 

[Liljonny11]

I think people who haven't fully understood how blockchain works and the beauty of how bitcoin works, tend to say things like "BitCoiin is a big joke" or "These crooks". It's literally creating a system where we don't have to trust the real crooks (The banks) to handle our money. So if a Bank decides to use your money and all of sudden doesn't have it, you would be screwed. This wouldn't happen in a decentralized system. The architecture behind Bitcoin is basically unhackable and promotes honest miners. The real problem is people trusting sites other third parties to protect their Bitcoin keys. And losing them. If you ask for sources you can just google, but I have been developing with Blockchains for months now

 

[cliffordcooley]

If you ask for sources you can just google, but I have been developing with Blockchains for months now

Well good for you! I'm not a gambler or investor, so I'll pass on your coaching advice.

 

[Liljonny11]

Well good for you! I'm not a gambler or investor, so I'll pass on your coaching advice.

I get it, but my point was block chain technologies is less of a gamble than a regular bank. But yes as a new technology, I can see how people might see it as a risk.

 

[p51d007]

The thing that scares me is that the Federal Reserve prints on every paper money, "Backed by the full faith and credit of the United States" LMAO! Faith? Credit?
Probably one of the worst things they ever did in 1971, taking the USA off of the gold standard. Now, are paper money is pretty much worthless. And, allowed our government to spend money it didn't have to the tune now of around 20 trillion dollars in debt.

 

[Bilibong]

I still think Bitcoin is a big joke. I am not sympathetic to the victims who invested in Bitcoins. Perhaps that is why this fork has come to pass Seems I'm not the only one that may feel this way.

bitcoin went up $400 this week and is still up about $200, and it's up from the whole $50 I spent when I bought my first bitcoin. I get how you could see that as a bad investment.

 

[DelJo63]

First, Bitcoin is only one use of Blockchain technology (see the wiki). The 'hard split' is due to the math and the block sizes use for the chain. By increasing the block size, more history can be self-contained allowing for more transactions.

Here's another tutorial