Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Bitcoin XT 0.11A

From: muyuubyou <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 2015 23:39:54 +0100

I posted this to /r/BitcoinMarkets but I thought I might post it here as
well.

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Currently 0 mined blocks have voted for XT.

If it ever gets close to even 50%, many things can happen that would
reshape the game completely.

For instance:

- Core could start boycotting XT by not relying to them and/or not relying
from them.

- Core could appropriate the version string of XT, making it impossible to
know how much they are progressing and a losing bet to actually execute the
fork.

This kind of node war if the factions were sizeable would make it very
risky to transact at all - balances in new addresses could end up
vanishing. Usability of the system would plummet.

Note that any disagreement between the network and the biggest economic
actors - mainly the exchanges at this point, "wallet services" maybe -
would mean BTC plummets. Hard. And so would confidence.

It's a risky game to play.
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PS: I consider this attempt at takeover about as foul as it gets. The
equivalent of repeating a referendum until a yes is obtained: the
reasonable reaction to this is actively blocking said "referendum". There
was a fair play alternative which is voting through coinbase scriptSig like
plain 8MBers are doing, or like BIP 100 proposes for dynamic adjustment.
Once a majority is obtained in this way, devs have to react or if they
don't then this sort of foul play would be justified. But this wasn't the
case.

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