Comment by adastra22
3 months ago
By what mechanism? The whole point of bitcoin is that you can’t force a consensus change. This is enforced by the algorithm and the laws of thermodynamics.
3 months ago
By what mechanism? The whole point of bitcoin is that you can’t force a consensus change. This is enforced by the algorithm and the laws of thermodynamics.
If, for whatever reason, all the mining power switches to the other chain, it will become the de facto "Bitcoin".
I don't know what the specific mechanism would be, but I would bet that it relates to the billions of dollars backing the current ecosystem, and the interests of the people behind them. If the right event or crisis comes along, then people could be compelled to switch over to something else.
I'm sure there's someone out there still mining blocks on that chain with the exploit from 2010, but that's not where the mining power is. If the right series of events occurs, the miners will switch.
> If, for whatever reason, all the mining power switches to the other chain, it will become the de facto "Bitcoin".
The miners do not control the network. The people transacting on the network control the network and decides who is rich and who is not; and whether the miners get paid or not.
If literally 100% of miners switched, leaving zero on the original chain, then people will have no choice since it won’t do any more transactions.
But if, say, a mere 99% of miners switch, it’s far from a given that people would follow. Having more mining capacity makes the chain more secure, but it’s not that big of a deal.
And anyone can become a miner. It's not reasonable on small rigs because there are so many miners now, but if most of them leave, then the common man can get back in to mining.
2 replies →
What you can do, and what has been done in the past, is get a critical mass of large cryptocurrency actors to agree that a protocol change should be applied and that the results of that protocol change are called "Bitcoin". As the Bitcoin Cash folks quickly realized, it's not tenable to try and maintain a disagreement with Coinbase and large miners about about what the Bitcoin protocol is; if you don't want to accept the upgrade, your only practical option is to make a fork and call it something else.