Questions tagged [soft-fork]

Should be used for questions regarding softforks of the bitcoin blockchain

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If I delay upgrading to the latest Bitcoin Core version post Taproot activation does my node ever verify early Taproot spends?

Let's assume the Taproot soft fork is activated in June 2021. I continue to run an old version of Bitcoin Core (not enforcing Taproot rules) in July 2021 and so my full node treats valid Taproot ...
0 votes
1 answer
62 views

Why are transactions not used for signalling?

Currently miners can signal for certain BIP proposals. But users cannot signal, that's why they need to indirectly force miners to vote for them, using UASF's. But why are transactions not used for ...
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1 answer
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as a individual miner's side, how UASF, UAHF agree or disagree is occurred?

UASF is timestamp-based method. after that time, new rules will start. but i have a few question about this. how this rules is accepted by USER? does miner program contains 'yes' or 'no' about this ...
4 votes
1 answer
348 views

Activation of SegWit v1

The segregated witness soft fork of August 2017 included a versioning field which would allow for future incrementation. Anthony Towns has recently posted an early draft of the proposal for the SegWit ...
3 votes
1 answer
206 views

What are the risks of a lower-than-95% activation threshold for soft forks (particularly SegWit)?

95% seems exceptionally conservative, especially given the evidence of vetoing by a subset of Bitcoin miners. What risks does, say, 60% over a longer activation period hold vs 95% for SegWit?
6 votes
1 answer
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How do we know which soft-forks were implemented using User-Activated Soft Fork or Miner-Activated Soft Fork?

This seems to be the most common definition When a majority of miners upgrade to enforce new rules, it is called a miner-activated soft fork (MASF). When full nodes coordinate to enforce new rules, ...
-2 votes
1 answer
143 views

Can cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin be turned into a censored payment system under that would be financial regulation framework creating soft forks? [closed]

It s well known mining pools as well as hashing power is centralized in countries where electricity is cheap and using mining farms rather belonging to at least medium sized companies than single hand ...
2 votes
1 answer
163 views

What is a softchain?

What is softchain and how is it different from drivechain? What are associated tradeoffs and feedback from community?
1 vote
1 answer
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Broadcasting deprecated block version

With the recent addition of Binance to the group of miners who will accept taproot, I wonder what would happen if despite a total of more than 99% of the network accepting it, a miner still doesn't ...
2 votes
2 answers
116 views

How do nodes verify backwards incompatible blocks?

When you start the initial block download with the latest versions of Bitcoin Core, how does your node know that old blocks were valid according to different rules prior to soft forks?
2 votes
0 answers
32 views

Why is BIP133 listed as 'Draft' when it has been implemented for years?

BIP133 is listed as 'Draft' but it has been implemented since v.0.13.0 https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0133.mediawiki Is there anything preventing it from being labelled as 'Final'?
1 vote
2 answers
303 views

Does a soft fork result in two different blockchain versions?

I've read the following: Both forks create a split, but a hard fork creates two blockchains and a soft fork is meant to result in one. Let's consider 2 situations: block size max limit is 1mb and ...
2 votes
1 answer
221 views

Can we experiment on Signet with multiple proposed soft forks whilst maintaining the ability of full nodes to validate the Signet chain?

One of the goals of Signet is to test proposed soft forks before they are activated on mainnet. Not only does this mean proposed soft forks such as Taproot that at the time of writing (August 2020) ...
2 votes
1 answer
92 views

What is the point of a soft fork when it's backwards compatible?

I understand a soft fork occurs when changes in the Bitcoin protocol are backwards compatible, but why is that a fork? Is there really a branch or is that just a formality? Or does this give me a ...
2 votes
1 answer
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why bip 34 uses two step on MASF(Miner Activated Soft Fork)?

in bip 34, which change to bitcoin version 1 -> 2, uses two step for network's consensus. step 1. check if 750 of the last 1000 blocks are version 2 or greater. step 2. check if 950 of the last ...
1 vote
1 answer
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A Bitcoin soft fork idea to help compress the blockchain

I've thought about a soft fork that can help storage costs. Why don't we force miners to embed the height of the TX Merkle tree in the first two bytes of the 4-byte block header version? It would ...
4 votes
1 answer
616 views

BIP34, BIP66 and BIP65 should have been enforced at unique block heights. Why do different sources claim different block heights for enforcement?

Inconsistent Consensus/Activation of BIPs BIP34 Activated Block Height 227,835 (BitMEX Reference) Activated Block Height 227,930 (Bitcoin Developer Reference) Activated Block Height 227,931 (...
1 vote
0 answers
60 views

How could be useful the softforks field that provides the RPC command getblockchaininfo?

When I execute the command getblockchaininfo I see useful information but I don't understand how to be useful the information that is displayed through field softforks, the example below: bitcoin-cli ...
3 votes
1 answer
662 views

What's the segwit transaction serialization "flag" field for?

According to bip 141, the segwit transaction serialization format (used to compute the wtxid) is: [nVersion][marker][flag][txins][txouts][witness][nLockTime] The bip mentions that the flag field ...
0 votes
1 answer
71 views

Can we detect contentious soft forks created by the miners?

Can we analyze the blocks or the data sent per block in order to see if it includes new data that we do not recognize and assume that's a soft fork and invalidate such a block? Can a softforked mining ...
0 votes
1 answer
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How can Bitcoin protect itself from a "dumb majority soft fork"?

Let's say a majority of miners change to using software that prohibits timelocks. This would be a softfork, so the blockchain would still look valid to nodes using the previous software, however nodes ...
1 vote
2 answers
196 views

BIP 144 transaction format and soft-forks and old nodes

I was trying to manually parse a raw Bitcoin transaction in order to better understand how it works. This is how it starts: "0200000000010141035625cd030eca667c95d1729a" I think I've parsed the Tx ...
4 votes
3 answers
530 views

Would it be possible to create a soft-fork for reducing miner reward?

Context: There is a bet going on r/bitcoin about the possibility of doing a user activated soft fork for reducing current miner reward to 0.25 BTC. One of the users says the bet had two points: the ...
0 votes
1 answer
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how to prevent losses after a hard or soft fork

i learned about hard and soft forks from this question; now i have a basic understanding about forks; but the answers of that question did not say what happens to transactions on the stale chain; if i ...
1 vote
2 answers
607 views

What happens to old transactions in case of a fork?

I'm confused about forking. What happens to the 'old' version of a blockchain and related transactions/data in case of a fork. Can they still be deleted or does the new branch still depend on them to ...
1 vote
1 answer
1k views

How to fork a cryptocurrency [closed]

I have cloned a coin and changed some variable to make it my own coin. I have launched it and have a few mining pools mining my coin. Going through the code I notice I have an error and the reward ...
2 votes
3 answers
171 views

Why is a softfork unable to divide the network?

I was wondering why a soft fork cannot in principle divide the Bitcoin network as a hard fork can. I understand that a soft fork, by definition, involves only tightening the consensus rules, but the ...
2 votes
2 answers
365 views

How do the nodes divide after a hard fork? Soft Fork?

After a hard fork, what happens to the full nodes? Say 11,000 BTC full nodes existed prior to the fork. Do all 11,000 end up supporting both BCH and BTC? Or does BCH start building it's own network of ...
1 vote
0 answers
39 views

Miners and Nodes: what are their role in protocol updates?

What are the different roles of miners and nodes for protocol updates (governance)? Which group is more important?
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1 answer
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Is it possible to copy BTC balances of only some addresses while forking

I want to fork a Blockchain for private use, however I want to keep only balance of some known adresses for example if my adresses are @A(10BTC), @B(20BTC), @C(30BTC) I want to see same adresses with ...
0 votes
1 answer
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bitcoin soft-fork how are the older nodes going to the verify new transaction?

I know soft fork which is compatible with older rules, but how are the older nodes going to the verify new transaction? for example : block#100 there is a new rule transaction. the miner who ...
0 votes
2 answers
2k views

What type of fork is Litecoin?

Is Litecoin classified as either a hard fork or soft fork? If neither, what is considered as?
1 vote
1 answer
356 views

Is Bitcoin centralized by mining pools?

Before going to my question, I want to make sure the difference between a full node and a miner. Below definition might be too simple, but it is enough to ask my question. A full node is to store ...
8 votes
3 answers
2k views

Can old coins be banned by a soft fork?

Satoshi Nakamoto is supposed to own 1.000.000 bitcoins on a thousands of wallets, and most of them are untouched since early blocks. This stake can potentially flood the market, so miners could ...
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1 answer
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What are the next forks of the Blockchain that have been announced?

What are the next forks of the Blockchain that have been announced? When will they occur? Where can you be kept updated? Many thanks for the replies! David
0 votes
1 answer
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What if old blocks invalidate with soft fork?

Making a soft fork means making consensus rules stricter. Therefore there is a risk that some old blocks mined long down the blockchain get invalidated. How was this handled in bitcoin soft forks? ...
2 votes
1 answer
568 views

Which nVersion bit is the "hard fork bit?"

A 2015 draft BIP suggested using a "hard fork bit": The most significant bit in nVersion is defined as the hardfork bit. Currently, blocks with this header bit setting to 1 are invalid, since BIP34 ...
2 votes
1 answer
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BIP9: What happens if I make a segwit transaction after lock in but before activation?

Will it be treated a anyone-can-spend or do the nodes enforce the new rules? Along the same lines, what exactly happens when we say a soft fork is activated? Are the enforced at the time SF becomes ...
1 vote
1 answer
85 views

Why are pre-softfork blocks are not causing problems for post-softfork clients?

i read the answer to this question and got some new one. As far as i understand how a soft fork works, it means that post-softfork clients with new consensus rules accept only blocks that follow ...
1 vote
1 answer
80 views

What is the limitations in Bitcoin's network that can't be change by a Soft Fork?

I'm trying to understand why (Or how) there is all kinds of different version for the Bitcoin nodes? I saw that if one node is following the Protocol limitations it can act as a valid node. Is ...
2 votes
0 answers
94 views

Is a replay-attack-proof soft fork possible?

Say there is a soft-fork. A is the chain that implements it, B is the chain that has a transaction that's valid pre-soft-fork, but invalid post-soft-fork, so it's following the old rules. We know that ...
21 votes
1 answer
2k views

How is SegWit a soft fork?

Reading this section of BIP144, I noticed the followng statement: Parsers supporting this BIP will be able to distinguish between the old serialization format (without the witness) and this one. ...

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