NoeBoties_Fool on Nostr: Diluting their holdings. Yes and No. They have a wallet with the current rules as ...
Diluting their holdings. Yes and No. They have a wallet with the current rules as would everyone. It has addresses with balances. New rules are applied by any miner as a hard fork. He has created a new chain with a new wallet. The wallet he has on the old chain still has exactly the same amount of coins under the old rules. He now also has that exact same amount of coins under the new rules in a new wallet. Effectively doubling the total number of coins. Theoretically, the value per coin is split in half but the volume is doubled. Time and the market will decide if his total holdings on two chains are worth more or less than the original value on the original chain would have been. Note I called them old chain and new chain. The market will also decide which one is 'real' Bitcoin, not simply the longest chain.
Yes my opinion is the longest chain should be called BTC and Bitcoin. In the fork, my number of coins double as well. I would probably pretty quickly sell my coins on the new chain and by more coins on the old chain. This mass action is what will make the longest chain, show where the value is considered to be and determine who is best and is BTC.
A new chain with more coins would dilute that value, on that chain, as your percentage of the whole would be smaller. Lets say they doubled the 21mil market cap to 42mil while the price was at $10 but, people loved the new chain and it's price quickly went to $20. I have that smaller percentage but my $ valuation remains the same, plus I still have my coins on the old chain. The old chains coin value should go down in this scenario but the over all market could expand with new money and keep them both up in price. Not likely but possible.
The miners biggest disincentive is the wasted electricity and downtime on what is historically a loosing proposition. BCH did okay for a while but look at BSV and others. They quickly lost a lot of hash power and turned out to be a pretty big waste of miners efforts (money)... but some do still mine them.
Further if there is a hard fork. My node does not just look for the longest chain. It looks for the longest chain that complies with the rules of my node. The new chain's blocks simply would not be validated by my node as it didn't follow my (the old) rules. I either update my node to the new rules or I stay on the old chain no matter how long the respective chains are. I could also fire up a second node for the new chain and have both two wallets and two nodes while the market decides the winner.
Lastly, a 51% attack can do a host of bad things and cause a lot of major problems. One thing it can't do is change the core set of rules simply because they have the majority of hash and thus require new rules like some kind of hostile takeover. That would require a hard fork whether 51% went with the new chain or not.
My confidence on this reply is fairly high but I could have some details wrong. Also, sorry so long.
Yes my opinion is the longest chain should be called BTC and Bitcoin. In the fork, my number of coins double as well. I would probably pretty quickly sell my coins on the new chain and by more coins on the old chain. This mass action is what will make the longest chain, show where the value is considered to be and determine who is best and is BTC.
A new chain with more coins would dilute that value, on that chain, as your percentage of the whole would be smaller. Lets say they doubled the 21mil market cap to 42mil while the price was at $10 but, people loved the new chain and it's price quickly went to $20. I have that smaller percentage but my $ valuation remains the same, plus I still have my coins on the old chain. The old chains coin value should go down in this scenario but the over all market could expand with new money and keep them both up in price. Not likely but possible.
The miners biggest disincentive is the wasted electricity and downtime on what is historically a loosing proposition. BCH did okay for a while but look at BSV and others. They quickly lost a lot of hash power and turned out to be a pretty big waste of miners efforts (money)... but some do still mine them.
Further if there is a hard fork. My node does not just look for the longest chain. It looks for the longest chain that complies with the rules of my node. The new chain's blocks simply would not be validated by my node as it didn't follow my (the old) rules. I either update my node to the new rules or I stay on the old chain no matter how long the respective chains are. I could also fire up a second node for the new chain and have both two wallets and two nodes while the market decides the winner.
Lastly, a 51% attack can do a host of bad things and cause a lot of major problems. One thing it can't do is change the core set of rules simply because they have the majority of hash and thus require new rules like some kind of hostile takeover. That would require a hard fork whether 51% went with the new chain or not.
My confidence on this reply is fairly high but I could have some details wrong. Also, sorry so long.