区块链分叉,区块链分析

1. What exactly is a blockchain fork?

Fork is a magical term in the blockchain world. The blockchain network has since been divided into two, and people with different consensuses have parted ways. Is this a turbulent split or the formation of a new consensus?

The fork of the blockchain can be said to be a unique version upgrade method in the blockchain network. Just like the Internet software we use in our lives, after using it for a period of time, it will naturally It needs to be optimized and upgraded to solve some users' usage problems. The same is true for the blockchain, except that its upgrade is special. The upgrade will be jointly decided by the participating miners, and it can even produce multiple versions. It is not like the Internet where there is a dictatorship and no choice.

The principle is this, because the blockchain is a chain structure composed of data blocks. Therefore, when he wants to upgrade, he will actually start from a certain data block and connect to two different data blocks, thus dividing into two chains; just like branches, everyone shares the same trunk, and the sharing will be separated. The previous data, but there are many branches belonging to multiple chains, and this process is called bifurcation.

We have also said before that the upgrade of the blockchain is decided by the miners together. Since there are more people participating, there will be different opinions. When everyone can reach a consensus, the points will be divided. The two forked chains are equivalent to one being an old version and the other being a new version, both of which are compatible. After the miners on the old chain are upgraded, they gradually transition to the new chain. In the end, everyone is upgraded and only the new chain is left. This is called soft chain. Forks. Specifically, a soft fork is a temporary phenomenon within the system and will not fork a new blockchain. When the blockchain system is upgraded, some nodes can still work even if they are not upgraded in time. After the soft fork of Bitcoin, it will not produce two chains like a hard fork, but will remain on one chain. The soft fork will undergo some upgrades, but it will not affect the stability and effectiveness of the entire system. The old The node will be compatible with the new node, but the new node is not compatible with the old node. The two can still coexist on the same chain.

When the miners cannot reach a consensus, although everyone shares the previous data, two new chains are formed, just like the evolution of species. Some monkeys evolved into humans, and the other evolved into With the orangutan, both species have changed and are incompatible with each other. This is called a hard fork. That is to say, a permanent divergence occurs in the blockchain. After the new consensus rules are released, some nodes that have not been upgraded cannot verify the blocks produced by the upgraded nodes, and a hard fork usually occurs. A hard fork in the code will change the difficulty level of the algorithm.

The substantial bifurcation occurred because of the irreconcilable differences in the original community's internal ideas during the dynamic development of the project. The community behind the blockchain, as a decentralized organization, advocates non-violent freedomThe free association of people, which means that in the process of moving towards an unknown future, when new problems encountered exceed the original established rules of the game, it will be difficult to reach an agreement once differences arise. This is driven by the blockchain gene Determined by the attributes of decentralization.

The development of blockchain technology is still in its early stages. For blockchain, bifurcation is equivalent to a process of technological iteration. As people continue to discover that blockchain technology has Limitations, only by continuously upgrading and expanding this technology can blockchain technology mature. Of course, this kind of fork runs counter to the non-tamperable nature of blockchain, but no technology is inherently perfect, and blockchain is no exception. If the development of technology is uncontrollable when errors occur, then this technology cannot be used. Even universally, people's trust in it cannot be improved. And the result of the fork is decided by voting by community members, which still adheres to the principle of decentralization to a certain extent.

People have different opinions on blockchain forks, but in the historical process of blockchain development, forks have undoubtedly made blockchain more story-telling and possible. In general, the upgrade method of forking is a lot of trouble. However, he gave everyone more choices. Perhaps, blockchain will conceive more possibilities in this kind of seeking common ground while reserving differences.

2. What does ifo mean in the currency circle?

IFO is based on the original Bitcoin blockchain and splits into another chain according to different rules. 1. IFO is a fork based on mainstream currencies such as Bitcoin. The forked currencies involved in IFO are based on the original Bitcoin blockchain and split into another chain according to different rules. For example, the first time Bitcoin The fork gave birth to a new digital currency called BCH (Bitcoin Cash). 2. To put it simply, people who hold mainstream currencies such as Bitcoin can obtain forked coins, which is a new means of financing using virtual currency. At 18:24 on August 1, 2018, Bitcoin forked for the first time. This fork gave birth to a new digital currency called Bitcoin Cash.
Extended information:
1. Since it was born on the basis of the fork of the Bitcoin blockchain, users who originally held Bitcoin can get a Bitcoin Cash for free at a ratio of 1:1, which makes some Bitcoin Users started trading and mining Bitcoin Cash.
2. In the "currency circle", the first IFO is considered to be the process of Bitcoin forking to produce BCH (Bitcoin Cash). Since Bitcoin is generated by calculating data through various network nodes, and the Bitcoin block size is only 1MB (equivalent to network bandwidth), Bitcoin transactions are congested and slow. In early August 2017, Bitcoin was forked by technical means, resulting in a new digital currency BCH. The latter has a block size of 8MB and the block capacity is adjustable, but it is still the same as Bitcoin in terms of quantity and algorithm. Staying the same, people who own Bitcoin can get BCH for free at a 1:1 ratio.
3. The current congestion situation of the Bitcoin networkThis situation has undoubtedly become a huge obstacle to the continued development and growth of the Bitcoin community. In order to solve the congestion problem and record more accounts at the same time, people have to use technical means to increase the size of each page of the account book. However, as each page increases, there are different voices in the Bitcoin community, and different concepts lead to different upgrade plans. They cannot be unified, and everyone goes their separate ways - that is, a fork.

4. Like all other digital currencies, the tokens obtained by IFO can be realized in the following ways:
1. Trading platform trading
2. Over-the-counter trading
3. There are some spicy chickens The project may never be able to be listed on the trading platform, and no one will buy it in the over-the-counter transaction, and the tokens can only rot in the wallet

3. Soft forks and hard forks in the blockchain What is

Based on whether the forked blockchain is compatible with the old blockchain, forks are divided into "hard forks" and "soft forks". What are soft forks and hard forks? A hard fork refers to when the Bitcoin code changes and the old nodes refuse to accept the blocks created by the new nodes. Blocks that do not comply with the original rules will be ignored, and miners will follow the original rules and create new blocks after the last block they verified. A soft fork means that the old nodes will not be aware of the changes in the Bitcoin code and continue to accept blocks created by new nodes. Miners may work on blocks they have no understanding of, or validation of. Both soft forks and hard forks are "backwards compatible" to ensure that new nodes can verify the blockchain from scratch. Backward compatibility means that new software accepts data or code generated by old software. For example, Windows 10 can run Windows XP applications. Soft forks can also be "forward compatible". Forward compatibility means that old software can accept data and code generated by new software. For example, if a document you saved with Word 2013 can still be opened with Word 2011, it is a kind of "forward compatibility."

4. Why there are forks in the blockchain and what happens when the fork occurs

There may be many reasons for the formation of a fork in the blockchain.

When two nodes dig mines at almost the same time and release blocks at the same time, a temporary fork (state fork) occurs.

Essentially, there are differences of opinion on the current status of the Bitcoin blockchain.

When a forking attack is artificially launched, it is a deliberate fork. Another type of fork is when the Bitcoin protocol changesSometimes, the software needs to be upgraded. In a distributed system, it is not guaranteed that all nodes will upgrade the software at the same time. If some nodes are not upgraded, it will lead to protocol fork. Depending on the content of the protocol modifications, forks can be divided into hard forks and soft forks;

The Bitcoin protocol adds new protocols and expands new functions. Older nodes that have not upgraded their software will not recognize these modifications and will consider these features to be illegal. This is a disagreement over the content of the Bitcoin protocol, resulting in a fork called a hard fork. At this time, new nodes will always mine along the chain generated by the new node, and old nodes will always mine along the old node chain. Because the computing power of the new node is strong enough, two chains are formed that are always extending and parallel. . As long as these old nodes are never updated, the old chain will continue, which shows that this fork is persistent.

After the hard fork appeared, it became two parallel chains, which caused the community to split. Some people in the community think that the following chains are the most up-and-coming, and the currencies on each chain are independent. A major event in the history of Ethereum is the hard fork event. Ethereum is called ETH, but the ETH we see now is no longer the original ETH. Ethereum has had a hard fork in history, and the other chain is called ETC. In fact, ETC is the original protocol designed by Ethereum, and ETH is the protocol chain that was rolled back after hackers attacked the previous smart contract THE DAO on ETH (the Ethereum coins stolen by hackers were rolled back using a hard fork. to another smart contract and then returned to the true owner).

At the beginning of the fork, a lot of trouble arose due to the mutual influence of the two chain forks. For example: there is a transfer B->C on the ETH chain, and someone plays it back on the ETC chain and transfers the currency page on the ETC chain to C (C receives two amounts of money). Later, a chainID was added to each of the two chains to distinguish the two chains, so that the two chains were truly separated.

If restrictions are added to the BTC protocol so that original legal transactions are illegal in new transactions, a soft fork will form.

When most nodes have been updated, the old nodes recognize the blocks mined by the new nodes, so they publish the blocks they mined, but the new nodes do not recognize the blocks mined by the old nodes. , and continue mining along the blocks released by the last new node. When the new node has most of the computing power, the new chain will become longer and longer, so the blocks dug and released by the old node have been abandoned and cannot be Obtaining block rewards will eventually force old nodes to upgrade their software and realize allNodes recognize the new protocol and upgrade it. It can be seen that as long as more than half of the computing power nodes in the system update the software, such forks will not become permanent. P2SH in Bitcoin Script was added through the soft fork method.



I didn’t find much information on this part, but in most consensus protocols we assume that more than half of the computing power is needed;
< br /> In theory, if you master more than 50% of the computing power, you will have the absolute advantage of obtaining accounting rights, you can generate blocks faster, and you will also have the right to tamper with blockchain data. Therefore, when more than half of the computing power, that is, 51%, is honest and reliable, it can ensure that the entire blockchain operates legally and orderly.

But why choose more than half of the computing power instead of more than half of the users? Anyone can join the Bitcoin system, and creating an account is extremely simple. You only need to generate a public and private key pair locally. Only when transferring money (transaction) can the Bitcoin system know the existence of the account. In this way, a hacker can use a computer to specifically generate a large number of public and private key pairs. When the number of public and private key pairs exceeds half of the number in the system, a hacker can gain dominance (Sibyl attack). Therefore, the Bitcoin system cleverly uses computing power as the basis for voting.

5. Fang Gang said: Several misunderstandings about the blockchain

On August 2, 2017, viaBTC dug out the first block larger than 1M in history. Since then, Bitcoin has split into two chains: BTC and BCC. In essence, BCC is a new currency due to the implementation of UAHF, which is also in line with Satoshi Nakamoto's original intention.
BCC is a network fork of Bitcoin
In fact, BCC is a network fork of Bitcoin, which is an incorrect interpretation. The Bitcoin network itself operates stably and there is no fork at all. BCC is internationally defined as a new currency that appears by copying the Bitcoin blockchain and changing certain codes. Not only that, BCC does not meet the definition of a Bitcoin network fork, because BTC and BCC are two completely different chains.
The entire Bitcoin network information failed to be synchronized on one chain, and two (multiple) identical Bitcoin blockchain networks appeared. Both networks have a large number of miners mining, and in two different Transactions that occur on the network cannot be synchronized with each other, resulting in two parallel chains with exactly the same difficulty. This is called a fork.
The problem of developer centralization
Bitcoin once had a three-year expansion dispute due to the problem of developer centralization, which made the Bitcoin community restless. As the twin brother of Bitcoin, BCC also faces this problem, the community is worried that the history of Bitcoin’s expansion dispute will repeat itself on BCC in the future. The community mistakenly believes that the only team responsible for the BCC development team is Bitcoin ABC. The single development team will inevitably lead to the problem of developer centralization.
But in fact, BCC currently has four development teams, namely Bitcoin XT, Bitcoin Classic, Bitcoin Unlimited, and Bitcoin ABC. They are all competitors in the Bitcoin expansion plan, and have now developed compatible versions of BCC.
These four development teams basically include the teams that support large blocks in the Bitcoin expansion debate. Not only that, this can also ensure competition between development teams, and is also expected to attract more development teams to join. into their ranks.
BCC is controlled by an organization
ViaBTC founded by Yang Haipo is the first trading platform in the world to launch BCC, and he is also the first person to mine BCC. The first block was mined by ViaBTC. The community is worried that BCC is controlled by a centralized block and has become a political tool for some people.
But in fact, BCC is the product of Bitcoin’s three-year expansion battle. It is a decentralized digital currency supported by a huge community of big block supporters. It is Bitcoin’s Altcoins. Segregated verification has been removed, the block size limit of 1M has been removed, and the on-chain expansion route has been adhered to.

6. Will Bitcoin split and the currency bank’s plan to deal with the Bitcoin fork

If you have been paying attention to the news in the Bitcoin community, you will know that in about two weeks Within, possibly within 2 days at the earliest, the Bitcoin network may face some changes to the protocol.

In order to improve Bitcoin’s transaction capabilities and solve the Bitcoin network congestion problem, various parties have been arguing endlessly and have proposed a variety of solutions. In the next few weeks or as short as a few days, the Bitcoin community may usher in a smooth upgrade, a chain split, or simply maintain the status quo.

But which plan will be implemented in the end depends on the final voting results.

As of press time, 88.2% of miners have voted for SegWit2x (Bitcoin fork voting results query website: coin.dance/blocks)

OKCoin As a company dedicated to Bitcoin applications, our aim is to serve every customer well. OKCoin does not have the power to help users choose which Bitcoin technology, so OKCoin will support all Bitcoins currency technology development route, leaving the choice to the market and customers.

OKCoin will take the following measures during the period when Bitcoin forks are likely to occur:
1? At the time when a fork may occur, 2017-07-30 - 2017-08-02 ,In order to prevent Bitcoin deposits or withdrawals from being rolled back and replayed, we will stop Bitcoin deposits and withdrawals.

We will notify you of the specific time when withdrawals will be stopped. For the convenience of your transactions during the fork, it is recommended that you recharge Bitcoin in advance to prevent being unable to trade in unexpected situations.
2? If there is no fork and the network is stable, we will resume deposits and withdrawals.
3? If Bitcoin is split into one or more Bitcoins, OKCoin will provide the various split Bitcoins to all customers according to ownership rights, and gradually launch transactions of all new types of Bitcoins .
4? For users, the easiest way is to recharge Bitcoin in advance. We will handle various technical issues during the fork process for you.
5? If there are price abnormalities during the fork, OKCoin may temporarily suspend transactions.

We believe that many years later, after long-term market competition, one or more versions of Bitcoin will be widely adopted. Let us work together for the future of Bitcoin.