Day: August 18, 2017

New details have emerged about Australia’s cryptocurrency exchange bill.

On August 17 the bitcoin payment processing company Bitpay published a blog post about Segwit2x that stirred quite a bit of controversy with the bitcoin ‘community.’

Also read: Search Volumes for Bitcoin and Ethereum Enter Inverse Correlation

Bitpay Sparks Controversy for Promoting the BTC1 Codebase as a Reference Client to Bitcore Nodes

The post called “What Bitcore Users Need to Know To Be Ready for Segwit Activation” gives a detailed explanation to its Bitcore user base about the upcoming consensus process with Segwit2x. However, the post also leaves btc1 software (Segwit2x) as a form of upgrade for Bitcore full nodes.

Immediately a few bitcoin proponents and developers such as Peter Todd, Tuur Demeester, Francis Pouliot‏, John Carvalho‏, Rodolfo Novak‏ and others got angry with Bitpay for recommending an alternative to the Core reference code. Developer Peter Todd called Bitpay’s statement “fraudulent” and talked of litigation. Programmer Eric Lombrozo has asked his Twitter followers to openly ban any company that supports Segwit2x. Across forums and social media, the blog post caused relentless debate throughout the entire day of August 17.

Bitcoin.org Operator Theymos Seeks to Remove Copay Wallet and All Bitpay Services from the Website

Then later on into the day the owners of Bitcoin.org decided to create a pull request to remove Bitpay’s services and the Copay wallet from the site’s recommended wallet section. One of the operators of Bitcoin.org and the lead administrator of r/bitcoin, Theymos, explains that Bitpay is pushing “fraudulent” software.

“Bitpay is fraudulently passing off btc1 as Bitcoin software to which people are required to upgrade,” explains Theymos. “This is highly unethical and a violation of the bitcoin.org hard fork policy.”

Therefore, this pull request removes from bitcoin.org any references to Bitpay and their software/services Copay and Bitcore.

Bitcoin developers like David Harding detailed that Bitcoin.org should “proceed slowly and try to get Bitpay to clarify their position before we delist them.” Other developers agreed with Harding’s opinion, but others agreed with the proposal set forth by Theymos. Then btc1 developer Jeff Garzik explains his view stating, “NAK. It is reasonable and practical to follow the blockchain with the most hashpower (thus most secure).” Bitcoin.org operator Theymos didn’t like this statement and replied back to Garzik by saying, “Bitcoin is not and must not be ruled by miners,” and leaves a link to a Bitcoin Wiki site he controls.

Segwit2x Developer Jeff Garzik Removed From Github Repo

Just when you thought the drama would end, it didn’t, as later on that day Jeff Garzik was removed from the Core bitcoin repository as a contributor. This also created quite a stir on Twitter as people who are angry about Segwit2x stated things like, “you brought it upon yourself Jeff, enjoy working on btc1 alone.” While others defended Garzik and called the action “ludicrous.”

According to bitcoin Core contributor, Matt Corrallo, Garzik’s statements in the past would agree with the decision. “As Jeff himself advocated for several times, this is just the removal of people who haven’t been active in the project for years. No need to read too much into such things.” Software developers Peter Todd and Greg Maxwell also confirm the reason why Garzik was removed was due to inactivity. However, there are some speculators who believe the move was far more political, and coincidently done before the second half of the compromise.   

It doesn’t seem like Segwit2x is off to a good start for the second half of the New York Agreement. Already bitcoiners are talking about the birth of a third bitcoin called “B2X.” Meanwhile, bitcoin cash supporters are telling Segwit2x proponents to join them, as most believe the compromise is a failed attempt. It’s safe to say the quarreling will be very intense over the next couple months in bitcoin-land, and another blockchain split is looking more probable as the days continue.

The Segwit2x Working group (btc1) plans to hard fork the network to increase the block size to 2MB on block 494,784 on the Bitcoin blockchain.

What do you think about the drama surrounding the Segwit2x code and Bitcoin Core reference client? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

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The post Segwit2x and Bitcoin Core Drama Flares Up ‘Community’ Tension appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Bitcoin millionaire teenager Erik Finman is launching a spaceship to document humanity with NASA.

Not long ago, we discussed whether or not the SegWit2x hard fork would still happen. At the time, it appeared there was very little reason to suppose it would, considering the lack of support enjoyed by this project. However, the team behind SegWit2x is not giving up just yet, and they have announced the block number during which the hard fork is expected to take place. Even with this announcement, the fork may not have much support in the long run.

Fake Bitcoin Core Twitter Account

The SegWit2x hard fork message was distributed by the BCoreProject Twitter account, rather than the Bitcoin Core account itself. This shows someone is still planning to go ahead with the SegWit2x hard fork and increase the block size to 2 MB. Unfortunately, it seems the vast majority of the network has no intention of doing this right now, and it is unclear how much support this proposal still has.

A few weeks ago, the Bitcoin network came together to lock in the activation of Segregated Witness. Indeed, the network would receive this upgrade in one way or another. With so many mining pools coming together to activate this concept, nothing stands in the way of making Bitcoin scale over the coming months. However, the opinions on how SegWit should be activated in order for Bitcoin to scale remain somewhat divided.

Segregated Witness will result in a transaction throughput increase. However, there is a portion of the community that still feels Bitcoin requires a 2 MB block size increase on top of Segregated Witness. That group is comprised of supporters of SegWit2x, who have announced plans to introduce this block size hard fork in one way or another. For now, that fork is scheduled to take place in November. The bigger question is whether or not it will gain enough support to survive.

As previously announced Bitcoin Core is hard forking in November on Block 494,784. More details here for now https://t.co/fIc5MQaRro #Bcore

— Bitcoin Core (@BcoreProject) August 16, 2017

The decision on the team’s part to state that “Bitcoin Core will hard fork in November” on a non-official Twitter account was not necessarily a good approach. There will always be people who have no idea which Bitcoin Core Twitter account is the real one. It is not hard to see this particular account has nothing to do with Bitcoin Core whatsoever. Still, it is good to know things will finally go down around block 494,784. Assuming it actually occurs, this will spawn yet another blockchain.

Right now, it appears most pools still signal the intention to activate SegWit2x on the release date. Furthermore, it does not appear any of the pools pledging support earlier have backed out of the agreement. That said, this was merely “intent” and not a full-fledged pledge to signal SegWit2x activation either. Rest assured there will be plenty of political shenanigans come November, as interesting things tend to happen at such critical times in Bitcoin’s history. It does not appear the majority of Bitcoin Core supporters have any love lost for SegWit2x whatsoever.

Things have always been interesting for Bitcoin, and that will not be changing anytime soon. SegWit2x has the potential to disrupt the network once again, just like Bitcoin Cash did for a few days. However, another altcoin using the Bitcoin name is the last thing we need right now. SegWit2x is an intriguing idea that may be successful or fall flat on its face. It is impossible to tell what the future holds right now, but we will find out more in the months to come.

Financial institutions aren’t shy of experimenting and structuring new products. Fisco, a Japanese-based financial information provider, has issued debt denominated in Bitcoins.

The Australian government has introduced legislation in mid-August 2017 that will regulate virtual currency exchanges in the country.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong makes it among the elite young influential minds in 2017 as he is named on Fortune’s 40 under 40 list.

Chinese healthcare data is to get the Blockchain treatment in a joint scheme between Alibaba and local government.

Japanese bitcoin exchange bitFlyer is heading to the U.S., and already has approval to operate in 34 countries.

A sudden increase in the price of bitcoin cash is changing the economic dynamic between it and the original bitcoin.