Many are panicking. As pending code change could bring about serious instability.
A community based organisation overseeing Bitcoin wans that Bitcoind received from August the 1st may disappear or be rejected as invalid.
Bitcoin.org said that at the start of next month, Bitcoin confirmation scores – a number representing the difficulty of altering the associated transaction – may deem Bitcoin unreliable for a while.
Bitcoins received from August 1st may vanish from your wallet or become Bitcoins that people will reject as payment according to this group.
This potential network disruption is caused by Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 148 (BIP 148)describing a user-activated soft fork. Reason is to implement a code revision called Segregated Witness, or SegWit, a way to separate identifier data in a Bitcoin transaction to a signature data from transaction.
Benefits include the Bitcoin block size increasing, third parties more limited in being able to modify transaction data, and making script upgrades more simple.
The consensus of Bitcoin miners is what the Segwit operation depend on. The change should become active to all compatible Bitcoin clients if the majority of Bitcoin miners give their support. But if only a minority of the miners support BIP 148, the blockchain may split. In this case. legacy Bitcoins and BIP 148 Bitcoins will become incompatible to each other. Therefore a lot of people's wallets will become useless...
So far only 35% of miners want this change after several months. Some propose that a different activation be used for Segwit that does not rely on miners. A method called 'User Activated Soft Fork (UASF)'. Similar mechanisms were used in Bitcoin upgrades in the past.
UASF is boycotting on steroids. If a large group boycotts any mining done by miners, it is not just them that are affected. But also anyone that uses Bitcoins from those miners. This can affect a lot of people. This is what is happening on August the 1st and people are forced to take a side.
If all people choose a side then there will be no issue. But if the outcome is indecisive and a rift forms dividing the 2 sides, then many will face the uncertainty that their Bitcoins may become invalid. Many are forced to m=out their money where their mouth is. See why there are so many people pulling out of the market causing the dips and affecting other cryptocurrencies into a downturn like steem? How does one decide when there is so much fear involved...
If Bitcoins are accepted from someone who is boycotted, it will vanish from those wallets. The best thing to do now is to stop using these Bitcoins until we know the result. For now:
- Think twice before trusting payments until resolution of this situation.
- Do not send payments during this period.
- Be informed before investing in a particular outcome.
It is unpleasant, but there is a potential of billions being wiped off the Bitcoin CAP.
Thank you for reading. I would really love some opinions and perspectives on this. Please resteem this so we can invite more more minds into this discussion, especially if you have crypto experts on your following list.
Looking forward to your comments.
Regards
Yoda
