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    BTC Frequently Asked Questions and Information Thread

    November 17, 2018

    BTC Frequently Asked Questions and Information Thread

    Frequently Asked Questions and Information Thread

    Posted: 04 Oct 2018 01:23 PM PDT

    This FAQ and information thread serves to inform both new and existing users about common Bitcoin topics that readers coming to this Bitcoin subreddit may have. This is a living and breathing document, which will change over time. If you have suggestions on how to change it, please comment below or message the mods.

    What is /r/btc?

    The /r/btc reddit community was originally created as a community to discuss bitcoin. It quickly gained momentum in August 2015 when the bitcoin block size debate heightened. On the legacy /r/bitcoin subreddit it was discovered that moderators were heavily censoring discussions that were not inline with their own opinions.

    Once realized, the subreddit subscribers began to openly question the censorship which led to thousands of redditors being banned from the /r/bitcoin subreddit. A large number of redditors switched to other subreddits such as /r/bitcoin_uncensored and /r/btc. For a run-down on the history of censorship, please read A (brief and incomplete) history of censorship in /r/bitcoin by John Blocke and /r/Bitcoin Censorship, Revisted by John Blocke. As yet another example, /r/bitcoin censored 5,683 posts and comments just in the month of September 2017 alone. This shows the sheer magnitude of censorship that is happening, which continues to this day. Read a synopsis of /r/bitcoin to get the full story and a complete understanding of why people are so upset with /r/bitcoin's censorship. Further reading can be found here with a giant collection of information regarding these topics.

    Why is censorship bad for Bitcoin?

    As demonstrated above, censorship has become prevalent in almost all of the major Bitcoin communication channels. The impacts of censorship in Bitcoin are very real. "Censorship can really hinder a society if it is bad enough. Because media is such a large part of people's lives today and it is the source of basically all information, if the information is not being given in full or truthfully then the society is left uneducated [...] Censorship is probably the number one way to lower people's right to freedom of speech." By censoring certain topics and specific words, people in these Bitcoin communication channels are literally being brain washed into thinking a certain way, molding the reader in a way that they desire; this has a lasting impact especially on users who are new to Bitcoin. Censoring in Bitcoin is the direct opposite of what the spirit of Bitcoin is, and should be condemned anytime it occurs. Also, it's important to think critically and independently, and have an open mind.

    What is the goal of /r/btc?

    This subreddit is a diverse community dedicated to the success of bitcoin. /r/btc honors the spirit and nature of Bitcoin being a place for open and free discussion about Bitcoin without the interference of moderators. Subscribers at anytime can look at and review the public moderator logs. This subreddit does have rules as mandated by reddit that we must follow plus a couple of rules of our own. Make sure to read the /r/btc wiki for more information and resources about this subreddit which includes information such as the benefits of Bitcoin, how to get started with Bitcoin, and more.

    What is Bitcoin?

    Bitcoin is a digital currency, also called a virtual currency, which can be transacted for a low-cost nearly instantly from anywhere in the world. Bitcoin also powers the blockchain, which is a public immutable and decentralized global ledger. Unlike traditional currencies such as dollars, bitcoins are issued and managed without the need for any central authority whatsoever. There is no government, company, or bank in charge of Bitcoin. As such, it is more resistant to wild inflation and corrupt banks. With Bitcoin, you can be your own bank. Read the Bitcoin whitepaper to further understand the schematics of how Bitcoin works.

    What is Bitcoin Cash?

    Bitcoin Cash (ticker symbol: BCH) is an updated version of Bitcoin which solves the scaling problems that have been plaguing Bitcoin Core (ticker symbol: BTC) for years. Bitcoin (BCH) is just a continuation of the Bitcoin project that allows for bigger blocks which will give way to more growth and adoption. You can read more about Bitcoin on BitcoinCash.org or read What is Bitcoin Cash for additional details.

    How do I buy Bitcoin?

    You can buy Bitcoin on an exchange or with a brokerage. If you're looking to buy, you can buy Bitcoin with your credit card to get started quickly and safely. There are several others places to buy Bitcoin too; please check the sidebar under brokers, exchanges, and trading for other go-to service providers to begin buying and trading Bitcoin. Make sure to do your homework first before choosing an exchange to ensure you are choosing the right one for you.

    How do I store my Bitcoin securely?

    After the initial step of buying your first Bitcoin, you will need a Bitcoin wallet to secure your Bitcoin. Knowing which Bitcoin wallet to choose is the second most important step in becoming a Bitcoin user. Since you are investing funds into Bitcoin, choosing the right Bitcoin wallet for you is a critical step that shouldn't be taken lightly. Use this guide to help you choose the right wallet for you. Check the sidebar under Bitcoin wallets to get started and find a wallet that you can store your Bitcoin in.

    Why is my transaction taking so long to process?

    Bitcoin transactions typically confirm in ~10 minutes. A confirmation means that the Bitcoin transaction has been verified by the network through the process known as mining. Once a transaction is confirmed, it cannot be reversed or double spent. Transactions are included in blocks.

    If you have sent out a Bitcoin transaction and it's delayed, chances are the fee you used wasn't enough to out-compete others causing it to be backlogged. The transaction won't confirm until it clears the backlog. This typically occurs when using the Bitcoin Core (BTC) blockchain due to poor central planning.

    If you are using Bitcoin (BCH), you shouldn't encounter these problems as the block limits have been raised to accommodate a massive amount of volume freeing up space and lowering transaction costs.

    Why does my transaction cost so much, I thought Bitcoin was supposed to be cheap?

    As described above, transaction fees have spiked on the Bitcoin Core (BTC) blockchain mainly due to a limit on transaction space. This has created what is called a fee market, which has primarily been a premature artificially induced price increase on transaction fees due to the limited amount of block space available (supply vs. demand). The original plan was for fees to help secure the network when the block reward decreased and eventually stopped, but the plan was not to reach that point until some time in the future, around the year 2140. This original plan was restored with Bitcoin (BCH) where fees are typically less than a single penny per transaction.

    What is the block size limit?

    The original Bitcoin client didn't have a block size cap, however was limited to 32MB due to the Bitcoin protocol message size constraint. However, in July 2010 Bitcoin's creator Satoshi Nakamoto introduced a temporary 1MB limit as an anti-DDoS measure. The temporary measure from Satoshi Nakamoto was made clear three months later when Satoshi said the block size limit can be increased again by phasing it in when it's needed (when the demand arises). When introducing Bitcoin on the cryptography mailing list in 2008, Satoshi said that scaling to Visa levels "would probably not seem like a big deal."

    What is the block size debate all about anyways?

    The block size debate boils down to different sets of users who are trying to come to consensus on the best way to scale Bitcoin for growth and success. Scaling Bitcoin has actually been a topic of discussion since Bitcoin was first released in 2008; for example you can read how Satoshi Nakamoto was asked about scaling here and how he thought at the time it would be addressed. Fortunately Bitcoin has seen tremendous growth and by the year 2013, scaling Bitcoin had became a hot topic. For a run down on the history of scaling and how we got to where we are today, see the Block size limit debate history lesson post.

    What is a hard fork?

    A hard fork is when a block is broadcast under a new and different set of protocol rules which is accepted by nodes that have upgraded to support the new protocol. In this case, Bitcoin diverges from a single blockchain to two separate blockchains (a majority chain and a minority chain).

    What is a soft fork?

    A soft fork is when a block is broadcast under a new and different set of protocol rules, but the difference is that nodes don't realize the rules have changed, and continue to accept blocks created by the newer nodes. Some argue that soft forks are bad because they trick old-unupdated nodes into believing transactions are valid, when they may not actually be valid. This can also be defined as coercion, as explained by Vitalik Buterin.

    Doesn't it hurt decentralization if we increase the block size?

    Some argue that by lifting the limit on transaction space, that the cost of validating transactions on individual nodes will increase to the point where people will not be able to run nodes individually, giving way to centralization. This is a false dilemma because at this time there is no proven metric to quantify decentralization; although it has been shown that the current level of decentralization will remain with or without a block size increase. It's a logical fallacy to believe that decentralization only exists when you have people all over the world running full nodes. The reality is that only people with the income to sustain running a full node (even at 1MB) will be doing it. So whether it's 1MB, 2MB, or 32MB, the costs of doing business is negligible for the people who can already do it. If the block size limit is removed, this will also allow for more users worldwide to use and transact introducing the likelihood of having more individual node operators. Decentralization is not a metric, it's a tool or direction. This is a good video describing the direction of how decentralization should look.

    Additionally, the effects of increasing the block capacity beyond 1MB has been studied with results showing that up to 4MB is safe and will not hurt decentralization (Cornell paper, PDF). Other papers also show that no block size limit is safe (Peter Rizun, PDF). Lastly, through an informal survey among all top Bitcoin miners, many agreed that a block size increase between 2-4MB is acceptable.

    What now?

    Bitcoin is a fluid ever changing system. If you want to keep up with Bitcoin, we suggest that you subscribe to /r/btc and stay in the loop here, as well as other places to get a healthy dose of perspective from different sources. Also, check the sidebar for additional resources. Have more questions? Submit a post and ask your peers for help!

    submitted by /u/BitcoinXio
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    Due to ABC releasing version 0.18.4 with a checkpoint and re-org protection, we now have a permanent split between BCH and BSV.

    Posted: 16 Nov 2018 09:39 PM PST

    Due to ABC releasing version 0.18.4 with a checkpoint and re-org protection, we now have a permanent split. ABC miners will for sure keep mining and extending the ABC chain. What nChain/CoinGeek will do is still unknown.

    The split is permanent and attacks to re-org and reverse the ABC chain to a pre-fork state are no longer possible. This means that exchanges can resume deposits, and we should urge them to, so everything can get back to normal.

    submitted by /u/MemoryDealers
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    BSV is going to zero. CSW / nChain / Coingeek have no intention to support a separate BSV coin. They didn't even build a BSV wallet or block explorer.

    Posted: 16 Nov 2018 10:14 PM PST

    BSV is going to zero.

    The price crash could be fairly quick, because not even CSW / nChain / Coingeek will support a separate BSV coin.

    They tried to hijack BCH's existing ecosystem & relationships, and they have no interest in building a new ecosystem from scratch.

    This is why they insisted there would be "no split" (wrong), and why they didn't even build a BSV block explorer.

    They're like Somali pirates. Their business model is hijacking oil tankers, not building oil tankers. If they fail in a hijacking, they will look for another hijacking opportunity, rather than become ship builders.

    This is the opposite of traditionally forked coins (BCH, BTG, etc), where the team's plan from the start was to create a new separate coin with a block explorer, and build up an ecosystem around the new separate coin.

    For example, when ABC forked BCH in August 2017, Amaury, Roger, etc were prepared to build BCH as a separate coin, use relationships to rebuild the ecosystem (getting added by Coinbase, Bitpay, Blockchain.com etc), promote it on the Bitcoin.com website, etc.

    So when the industry decides that BSV is now a separate coin that can be transferred to exchanges, watch out below, because it will be a zombie coin with no support.

    BSV will head towards zero, then start to be delisted from exchanges.

    submitted by /u/normal_rc
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    No, there’s no evidence that Satoshi signed a new message. This is just another parlor trick by Craig.

    Posted: 16 Nov 2018 02:52 PM PST

    Seems like someone at nChain couldn't figure out how to make CSW faking script work and had to go on StackOverflow to figure it out...

    Posted: 16 Nov 2018 02:41 PM PST

    Bitcoin ABC 55.7% ahead in proof of work!

    Posted: 16 Nov 2018 04:22 PM PST

    A Call for Bitcoin Cash Truth and Reconciliation

    Posted: 17 Nov 2018 12:16 AM PST

    The longer this war continues, the more it becomes clear that the intent of the war is to harm Bitcoin Cash, the true Bitcoin: a Peer-to-peer Electronic Cash System.

    At this point, the SV hostile takeover has failed.

    The SV chain has decisively split away from the chain followed by all other BCH clients - ABC, XT, BU, and Flowee, among others.

    There will be no unified chain that includes SV.

    The market has decisively spoken out against SV. The only industry support it has at this point is from a handful of companies funded by nchain and a handful of politically motivated exchanges and thought leaders that are sympathetic to BTC and hostile to BCH (ie bitfinex).

    At this point, continued infighting serves only the goal of harming the mission of peer to peer cash.

    It is time to end the war and resume building peer to peer cash.

    I therefore call on my fellows for reconciliation. Lay down your arms, cease this senseless attack, come back to building Bitcoin: a Peer-to-peer Electronic Cash System with us on BCH.

    We will welcome your return. Many of us - myself included - fell for our attackers lies and deceits, or were unsure of their true motives, and allied with the attacker, or like myself, failed to recognize the attack for what it was until it was well nigh upon us.

    People make mistakes. People can learn from mistakes. That's part of being human. It's okay to admit that you have made a mistake. I myself have done so.

    However.

    If, going forward, you persist in supporting our attacker, you are therefore identifying yourself as an enemy of peer to peer cash. And make no mistake about it: there are many enemies of peer to peer cash amongst our attackers ranks, including, quite likely, our attackers themselves.

    We must not allow them to tear us apart. Now is the time to quit fighting and resume building.

    I therefore call on all supporters of peer to peer cash to come forward, admit your mistakes as I have done, and be welcomed home.

    Let's continue forward by building what our enemy is most afraid of: Bitcoin: a Peer-to-peer Electronic Cash System.

    submitted by /u/jessquit
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    "I just want to be left alone"... so your plan this whole time was to cause so much drama and bring so much attention to yourself as a way to teach the world to leave you alone? ��

    Posted: 16 Nov 2018 02:47 PM PST

    Please set up your nodes to collect data for the stress test tomorrow.

    Posted: 16 Nov 2018 05:56 PM PST

    Please make sure you have NTP or timesyncd installed and active, or another form of clock synchronization, and please enable debug=bench and do anything else you can think of to collect data on node performance.

    The stress test is expected to be pretty big. The expected transaction throughput rate on this one is something like 250 tx/sec, which is likely to saturate ABC's net_processing code. It will be informative if we can collect some data on where exactly in the code the bottlenecks are. If you know how to compile from source, it would be great to compile bitcoind with profile symbols enabled (export CXXFLAGS="-pg -O 2", I think, followed by "./bitcoind -daemon=0" -- profiling data won't be collected in daemon mode). Also, information on whether the UTXO cache and disk activity is the bottleneck will be helpful. Does dbcache=8192 help? If you have a ton of RAM, does cat ~/.bitcoin/chainstate/* >/dev/null help? (That would cache the DB at the OS level. Still uses leveldb, but no disk.) Do you see high disk tps with iostat? High iowait %?

    Unfortunately, I'm extremely busy right now and won't have the time I wish I had to devote to this project, so if anybody else who has time who can make specific suggestions on how to implement the things above, that would be appreciated.

    The thread for config options on the first stress test is here. Also, there's my writeup of the Sep 1st stress test results.

    If any of you are running BSV nodes, please set those up for data logging too.

    submitted by /u/jtoomim
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    This is both a huge win and a huge loss for BCH

    Posted: 16 Nov 2018 12:33 PM PST

    So, the hash war is over...for me anyway.

    As I predicted, there is no "winning" by trying to take over a community with brute force unless you win the hearts and minds of the people, which they obviously failed to do.

    The only thing that came of this was a lose-lose situation.

    I'm glad to see the community come together and reject this hostile takeover and attack. If you don't perceive it that way, I'm not here to try to convince you... you can see it however you like. But for many of it, it is more than clear exactly what happened.

    The huge win is that Bitcoin Cash survived. We will continue with our mission to bring permissionless p2p cash to the world. We also rejected and are now ostracizing dark forces and bad actors from the ecosystem.

    The huge loss is that some people's confidence are shaken badly. Users, investors, businesses, and even some of the inner community members are very upset. This is true for SV supporters as well.

    But we will rebuild. We need to focus. We need stronger security algorithms to prevent 51% attack threats. We need better cooperation from those who can work with others. And we need to keep focusing aggressively on merchant adoption.

    submitted by /u/jonald_fyookball
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    New CSW "block 9" scam - Hal Finney's old privkey compromised

    Posted: 16 Nov 2018 12:11 PM PST

    https://twitter.com/checksum0/status/1063495918970970114

    "Someone got hold of @halfin first bitcoin address private key, spend from it in 2017, and encoded a message in late october into the last transaction. They will try to claim it's an address Satoshi owned and the message is coming from him. Uneducated people will believe them. " @checksum0 10:16 AM

    Checksum0 calls the fraudsters plans already prior to it actually happening. A mere 15 minutes, there's a tweet from the @satoshi account (belongs to nChain likely) and then soon after, CalvinAyre tweets it pretending like it's relevant.

    https://twitter.com/CalvinAyre/status/1063513039989813248

    "Signature from Key 9?....Satoshi Lives...likely upset at Bitmain and http://Bitcoin.com for attacking Bitcoin." @CalvinAyre 11:24 AM

    Good eye from checksum0 to call this scam out before it even goes live.

    Simply put, old of the old private keys from Hal Finney has been compromised, and CSW+Calvin will now try to leverage their access to that key (and the @satoshi twitter account).

    Be ready, and don't fall their bait.

    edit: Info mentioned above may be not accurate. It seems a cryptographic collision is instead the chosen forging method. Essentially Sartre 2.0 - so it will take some time for respected cryptographers in the community to analyze it.

    It's not a valid signing because an insecure method is used.

    edit2:

    More updates for the most recent info:

    Anyone can mutate a hash for a valid ecdsa signature" - how CSW faked the new "proof".

    Seems like someone at nChain couldn't figure out how to make CSW faking script work and had to go on StackOverflow to figure it out... - behind the scenes of the new CSW forgery. :)

    submitted by /u/homm88
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    This crisis has taught me one thing for sure. Twitter is complete cancer, both here and in big politics. Why are we even taking seriously what has somebody said on Twitter ?

    Posted: 16 Nov 2018 01:02 PM PST

    Twitter is such a terrible, cancerous, propaganda&brainwashing-filled service I am starting to think it may be even worse than TV.

    Twitter is the perfect tool to create mass hysteria out of complete void.

    submitted by /u/ShadowOfHarbringer
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    How or when can we dump our SV for BCH?

    Posted: 16 Nov 2018 06:50 PM PST

    I am tired of the ongoing nonsense from csw and want to move on already. Every day we are wasting time not building on bitcoin cash. What would be the best way for us to dump sv shitcoins ? Poloniex isn't accepting bch deposits :(

    submitted by /u/cmonger
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    We mean no ill will to the SV supporters, let’s stop the Hash War and spread the Hash Peace

    Posted: 17 Nov 2018 12:32 AM PST

    Some observations about the trolling effects.

    Posted: 16 Nov 2018 10:43 PM PST

    There is something which I had observed recently is that...

    1) The trolls are back in huge numbers in the last couple of weeks. I suspect at least some of these Bitcoin Core trolls are the same people as the BSV trolls. Divide and conquer, that's what they wanted to achieve.

    2) Part of the community whom I knew didn't like ABC before are now supporting ABC. The trolls actually pushed people towards supporting ABC, making ABC a bigger community than before. Thanks to the trolling activities from BSV side, more people are supporting ABC than ever.

    3) The people who supports ABC are now more bonded than ever. It seems when you have someone (eg. the trolls) whom you commonly dislikes, people with different opinions are willing to put them aside and start banding together.

    4) The hashwar drama has created a lot of awareness for Bitcoin Cash, making BCH a bigger community than before. The war proves that Bitcoin Cash is decentralized and working as intended (if it's centralized, there won't be a hash war to begin with).

    Bitcoin Cash as decentralized peer to peer cash for the world lives on. I don't think crypto is ever going away, and given only Bitcoin Cash is ready to scale for the whole world to use... I have no doubt that we are definitely part of the early adopters. The next 5-10 years is going to be very interesting for Bitcoin Cash.

    submitted by /u/MobTwo
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    New Coin Dance Proof of Work Chart

    Posted: 17 Nov 2018 12:18 AM PST

    "I gotta know, do you really think Craig Wright is Satoshi?" Ryan X. Charles: "Yes"

    Posted: 16 Nov 2018 06:14 PM PST

    Weekly memo

    Posted: 16 Nov 2018 10:14 PM PST

    Yo guys, got latest memo from boss this week.

    1) Focus on shilling SV although we know there is no adoption or merchant services.

    2) Remind our fellow trolls to claim that SV will soon be the longest chain very soon but don't mention about last week's memo that btc has more proof of work compared to BCH. We don't want to be seen as contradicting ourselves.

    3) Shit on Roger for using sudden increase of hashrates while the rest of us rent hashrates to mine btc, let's pretend not to be hypocrites. The focus is to attack BCH.

    4) Let's cover up for Craig, try to hide the fact that he threatened the whole market that he will destroy crypto economy, if you keep work long enough, maybe people will forget, let's not bring up this topic while we trash BCH.

    5) Craig is our new God. Let's hold hand and sing kumbaya, chanting "Craig is Satoshi." We need to push the narrative that the idea of SV is headed by Satoshi himself, but let's not bring up the topic about Craig being a scammer who faked signatures in the past. The idea is to look legit, it's ok to contradict ourselves as long as we attack BCH.

    6) Last months memo has been superseded. 1mb is so 2013. We need to support 128mb blocks used in SV. Lightning is earning fees for boss although Whitepaper says fees are for miners. He is in a good mood when I had coffee with him last week. Contradicting ourself is ok as boss is happy and everybody is getting a Christmas bonus next month. Let's keep it up guys.

    submitted by /u/markpsp
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    Latest info: Status quo mining (SQ / NayBC) has ceased. There are currently 2 active Bitcoin Cash networks.

    Posted: 16 Nov 2018 09:33 PM PST

    Coin Dance: "We'll be adding accumulated work shortly!"

    Posted: 16 Nov 2018 07:33 AM PST

    Bitcoin ABC is currently 55.6% ahead on proof of work than BSV - Nakamoto Consensus worked!

    Posted: 16 Nov 2018 06:26 PM PST

    Always remember: Why is BCH being attacked but none of the other cryptocurrencies? Because BCH is the only one that has a shot at being a global currency.

    Posted: 16 Nov 2018 02:55 PM PST

    Think about it. If we weren't on the right path with BCH, there wouldn't be a need to attack us. We are the only ones being attacked, because we are the only ones with a coin of actual long-term usability & value.

    submitted by /u/scotty321
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    It is currently... 121.20% more profitable to mine on the Bitcoin (BTC) chain

    Posted: 16 Nov 2018 06:45 AM PST

    Some misconceptions I have seen during this "Hash War"

    Posted: 16 Nov 2018 02:23 PM PST

    "Chain Y is 30 blocks ahead of chain Z, therefore chain Y wins"

    This is irrelevant as the chains have split and are mining on different rules/difficulty. "block ahead" only matters for miners who are on the same chain.

     

    "It does not matter if chain Z has more hash rate than chain Y, they have forked and are not compatible"

    It is true that no amount of hashrate of chain Z can make a difference for chain Y, they are mining on different chains with different rules. But it does matter if chain Z moves some of their hashrate to chain Y to disrupt it (empty blocks and reverting transactions)

     

    "A checkpoint will save us from a 51% attack"

    Checkpoints only prevent disruption of the past, it doesn't do anything to prevent disruption after the checkpoint.

     

    "Hash rate decides who wins"

    It may look like this is true now, because BCH(ABC) has more hash rate and is winning, but imagine if SV had more hashrate, would the entire BCH community just rollover and admit defeat? No, hash rate only helps to prevent disruption. The people behind BCH(ABC) don't just go away because someone has more money to throw away on mining.

    submitted by /u/bitcoiner_since_2013
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    As SV is crying that ABC added a checkpoint back to the fork, can we expect that SV will remove all THEIR checkpoints?

    Posted: 16 Nov 2018 02:15 PM PST

    You've got to realize: "There is no hash war"

    Posted: 16 Nov 2018 10:56 PM PST

    Insert thereisnospoon.gif

    Since the chains have split there is no hash 'war', merely some sort of balance. See earlier splits on our chain like bitcoin core, bitcoin diamond etc.

    The only tricky bit is the absence of replay protection, that particular problem only 'automatically' goes away if one chain loses all value.

    submitted by /u/Collaborationeur
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