Whales Add Weight to Vote

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Of particular interest were two addresses containing significant amounts of bitcoin voting with the majority. On Bitcoinocracy, results are tallied according to the total amount of bitcoin backing or opposing a statement – so larger holdings matter a lot.

The “whale” addresses were this one containing over 41,748 BTC and this one with 44,998.

The questions addressed many key concerns regarding what might happen in the event of a Bitcoin fork, with some politically-charged wordings. Questions voted on by the large-holding addresses were:

I doubt that Unlimited blocksize is bad for Bitcoin because it diminishes incentive to pay fees and in the long term it makes mining unprofitable (92.15% voted ‘doubt’)I believe that In the event of a fork, I will sell RBF BlockStream Core Coins and buy Classic Bitcoins(83.21% voted ‘believe’)I doubt that If non-Core hard fork wins, major holders will sell BTC, driving price into the ground (76.56 voted ‘doubt’)I believe that Block size limit should be increased to 8 mb as soon as possible (86.14% voted ‘believe’)I believe that Micropayment channels and other tools can help Bitcoin reach all applications for money, without compromising Bitcoin’s most valuable properties (94.76 voted ‘doubt’)

Never Go Full Ethereum

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The recent drama in the Ethereum community led to concerns that a similar disputed fork in the Bitcoin blockchain could result in two rival versions of Bitcoin – which would likely drive prices down.

In Bitcoin’s case the argument is somewhat different – Ethereum’s fork changed the very nature of the platform, introducing the possibility that its blockchain could be altered again at will anytime in future.

This removed the perception of total trust in code that supposedly underpins the smart contract concept. “Ethereum Classic” fans say they are simply voting to keep the blockchain immutable.

A bitcoin disputed fork over block sizes would not have this same effect. Some might argue that Bitcoin with 2 mb block sizes is no longer “pure” Bitcoin, though the change is obviously less fundamental.