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When I learned about the limited supply of Bitcoin, I thought, "Great, no more rampant currency printing!" But then they developed the fork technology, which ca
by 0raymond0 3y ago
When I learned about the limited supply of Bitcoin, I thought, "Great, no more rampant currency printing!" But then they developed the fork technology, which can split one Bitcoin into countless pieces. I guess I underestimated the extent of human greed. Thankfully, it's all digital and our math can handle it.
- fearface 3y agoNo, weird that you’re comment is so high up, but shows how little crypto knowledge is around in HN. A Bitcoin is a Bitcoin, but it consists of smaller units called Satoshis. Like Dollar and Cents. Since the beginning of Bitcoin. A fork is a copy of the underlying source code of Bitcoin, which in itself has no value at all. You would also need to find people who run nodes for your fork and start convincing exchanges that your fork should be supported too…so no, this is not splitting Bitcoin
- wesapien 3y agoI thought it was the reverse. Satoshi is the unit at the code level and Bitcoin is just a representation for UX reasons.
- zubairq 3y agoYes this is accurate, satoshi is the unit and Bitcoin is more of a UX thing
- lottin 3y agoIf you fork the bitcoin blockchain you have now two ledgers, each one telling you that a certain number of bitcoins really exist. Who is to say that one is right and the other is wrong? In this scenario, it's debatable how many bitcoins are in existence.
- sowbug 3y agoYou might want to read the Bitcoin whitepaper. There is zero ambiguity in the situation you describe. That is the essence of the proof-of-work (or proof-of-stake, take your pick) solution to the Byzantine generals problem.
- lottin 3y agoThe ambiguity has to do with the fact that we don't know for sure which blockchain will prevail, because the protocol is unenforceable.