Longest chain by 30 blocks

And there is always 'checkpoints' security to be added.

Bitcoin difficulty change ahead

While the Cash split version is in a battle the original Bitcoin its difficulty will be lowered tomorrow. At least, it is expected as such. Meaning less hashpower is needed to find new BTC blocks. From that moment on some miners might switch over to mine for the attacking SV or the original Bitcoin Cash version made by ABC. Yet this might be overkill. Also since C.S. Wright has threatened to destroy Bitcoin BTC in 2019 it seems a bit weird, to state the least, if they did so.

For Bitcoin Cash ABC there is a way now to secure their longest chain using checkpoints. These are hardcoded blocknumbers and their hashes that can be checked by the ABC network. Basicly it would mean that a hostile chain take-over by the SV clients is improbable. Of course there are the complains that this means it is not completely trustless anymore. As the developer(s) decides which blockchain is the one with the right blocks. But it is more safe.

In war, defense is allowed

Adding checkpoints to the ABC clients might be a good idea, although it seems overkill right now. For the SV client it will be a tough ride, as it is already 30 blocks behind. That is 5 hours of blocks mining. And so far it is unclear why the SV blocks were pending that long. There was a suggestion that the SV blocks were being mined inside a closed down network. This way it would be easy to mine a lot of blocks fast and then reconnect to the internet. To spread them out.

This seems highly unlikely as the SV supporting miners not in on this trick could have caused their own split to happen. Yet apparantly there was something else going wrong on the side of the attackers. What ever it was it did seem to lose them 5 hours of mining, or 30 blocks. And the mutineers would need 30+1 blocks to take the lead. While the SV blockchain also has an extremely small nodecount, which makes its decentralized P2P network very weak.

Did some Sharkpool(s) attack SV?

C.S. Wright and C. Ayre did have some BTC miner groups on their side of the attack, at first. There where Bitcoin BTC miners, still hating Bitcoin Cash ABC, who were willing to help it getting destroyed. They would do this inside so called Sharkpools, where the main goal would be to mine empty blocks. Just for the Cash, using it to buy more Bitcoin BTC with, to pump that price. Yet it did not seem to happen.

Did those Sharkpools not mine empty ABC blocks, or did they go for SV blocks instead. Where the SV network then would refuse to add those empty Sharkpool blocks. But if such a Sharkpool had a lot of mining power they could bring the SV chain to an apparant halt. This is partly due to the very low node count for the attacking side. But according to C.S. Wright a decentralized P2P network did not matter.

And then he threatened Bitcoin...

All the possible support from the Bitcoin Sharkpool miners the SV mutineers might have gotten, C.S. Wright managed to blow away himself. He did this in an interview by threatning to destroy Bitcoin BTC in 2019. (ab)Using an implied exploit in SegWit, at least so he claimed. And he would put an end to Litecoin LTC too. Well, by now many in the Cryptos realm know he is quite the bluffing pokerplayer, who also seems to like to threaten almost everybody.

But this was a very bad strategic move, he failed as a warlord, by threatning the enemy of his enemy. Besides that the attack by C. Ayre and him already hurt the whole Crypto realm, causing a massive market crash. Many businesses, users and traders probably would not be happy. And I think C.S. Wright and C. Ayre now will start to understand why a low node count might create a higher risk for a counter-attack. Blocking sets of IP addresses is easier if these are centralized in a small and weak centralized P2P network.

If CoinGeek switches

Then it will be game-over for the SV attack on the Bitcoin Cash ABC blockchain. This does not have to mean there will not be a seperate Bitcoin Cash SV chain. As it is to be expected to move on. Except if C.S. Wright has been bluffing all the way through and his financial buffer is soon drained dry, as wars tend to do. He could have gone for a split, with replay protection, would have saved him a lot of money. But hatred is blind.

If C. Ayre thinks his Coingeek business is about to lose a lot of money, and ABC clearly countered the attack, then he probably will call for a switch. At least that is what I expect will happen if the block gap stays at 30. But I do not expect C.S. Wright to stop, his goals are clear and he probably will move on with the SV version. At which ABC will probably hardcode some checkpoints into their client.

All's well, ends well?

No, there has been a lot of damage done to the whole of the Cryptos realm. It is not just about the Bitcoin Cash battle. To the outside world this added to the feeling of a no-go area, I think. Furthermore there is somebody who attacked Bitcoin Cash and also threatents to practicly destroy Bitcoin BTC, Litecoin LTC and the rest in 2019. No matter if this is just a bigmouth bluff or actually true, it already caused a lot of damage.

As I wrote before, it is a kind of sad though. So, no, it did not all end well. But at least it is becoming more clear. The war still seems to be ongoing. But it even looks like Bitcoin Cash ABC is taking a bigger lead. Now I wonder how the Crypto market is going to respond.

May the Cryptos be with us!

It looks like it is almost over...

Screenshot taken at https://cash.coin.dance