Comment by Klathmon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Klathmon | Hacker News Reader

Again, I'll repost what I posted in another thread this morning:

This Segwit2X has almost nothing to do with the original "Segwit2X". They are basically taking what they think is the good parts of all cryptocurrencies, and are putting it into one monstrosity.

- X11 based algorithm from DASH

- 2.5 minute blocktime from litecoin

- 4mb (closer to 8mb with segwit) blocksize from Bitcoin Cash

- difficulty adjustment algorithm from Bitcoin Cash

Plus they are promising some pretty impossible stuff in the "future":

- ZkSnarks from ZCash (which they list on the same line as "anonymous transactions" in some areas, and on a different line in others...)

- Lightning Network from Bitcoin

- Smart contracts from ETH

- Something called "offline codes" which god only knows what it means

Basically it's a shitcoin that is trying to lure people in with impossible promises and just taking what they think is the best thing from every major cryptocurrency and putting it into one disgusting abomination.

Oh, and they chose a loaded name to make sure they'd get some coverage in the "news".

This "Segwit2X" has literally nothing in common with the previous "Segwit2X" from november except for the name. Nothing else is the same. How they got any exchanges to list it under the same name i'll never know...

Just tell me how to claim these new coins and convert them to BTC once they are worth a bit (price usually spikes just after the fork). I'm extremely sceptical of altcoins which fork off of the Bitcoin blockchain, but welcome the free contribution to my retirement fund.

I am less skeptical of coins which split from the bitcoin blockchain than coins which are entirely new.

By splitting from the bitcoin blockchain, the authors of said coin have no easy way to 'premine' or get any other kind of 'first in' benefit without it being visible in the transaction history (like this is).

That should help the coin succeed on technical merits alone, rather than PR/marketing stunts and pump and dump schemes which work much better on new coins.

It also prevents 'coin inflation', where value gets split across a potentially infinite number of coins. By splitting from the original blockchain, businesses which don't want to take a risk on which coin/coins will succeed can simply demand equal amounts of every coin (or take payment in one coin, and then diversify into equal amounts of every coin). People who hold coins take no risk if additional coins fork off.

You can premine chain splits. See bitcoin gold, which had a premine of 100k coins, or the very coin this thread is about, with a premine of millions.

You can't secretly do it though.

With a new coin on a fresh chain, a premine can be secret, and outsiders can't tell the difference between a premine and the initial few users.

Oh, I see what you mean.

> How they got any exchanges to list it under the same name i'll never know...

I think this is the real hack, perhaps exploiting exchange sites that would for some reason auto-list a bitcoin knockoff (noting from the comments that the fork pre-mined the forkers 6,000,000 coin)

Hopefully they can do a better job than Jeff Garzik's previous B2X shitcoin.

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