CrispyScientist t1_j6efjjv wrote
I am not too familiar with the details of block chain. Can someone explain to me what's happening?
berdiekin t1_j6f8xt9 wrote
Short answer: A hard fork is when a group of people decide they no longer like the direction a crypto is going (or can't get to an agreement) and announce to the world that, at some specific moment in the future, they'll continue building the chain with their rules/technology.
This creates 2 chains with identical history up to the moment of the split (aka: hard fork).
Chain1: A -> B -> C -> D ....
Chain2: A -> B -> C-> X -> Y ...
Usually the chain with the most support gets to keep their name and the "loser" changes theirs.
Happened with Ethereum, but also Bitcoin, and probably others.
In the screenshot the dude is asking his gpt bot to look up what specific block was the last one to be in the shared history before a split.
crua9 t1_j6gek88 wrote
Look up on YouTube blockchain explained for kids.
This should give you an understanding without the depth you most likely don't care about.
Agreeable_Bid7037 t1_j6hlgwk wrote
Block chain is basically a way to do transactions super secretly.
When you use a block chain coin to make a secret transaction, you get a coin (online)called a bitcoin.
This coin is very special. And there are only a limited amount of it in the world.
Also its very hard for someone to crack your bitcoin and find out what transaction you did.
Bitcoins now have a value attached to it, by professionals in the finance market. And people buy and sell bitcoins from each other so that they can make profits from the rise and falls in the price of bitcoins.
r0sten t1_j6hutrv wrote
> Also its very hard for someone to crack your bitcoin and find out what transaction you did.
Only the first part of this sentence is correct, the cryptography in bitcoin is designed to give you absolute ownership of the bitcoin you control by means of (Currently) unbreakable encryption. But the transactions themselves are totally public on the blockchain that anyone can look up anytime. Once they know you are the author of a transaction they can scan that wallet for other movements and figure out a lot of info about you. Monero is a cryptocurrency that actually encrypts the transactions as well as the wallets so this does not happen, but it and other privacy conscious cryptocurrencies are not as popular as the ones that reveal your movements by default such as ethereum and bitcoin.
Iirc this was sort of a strategic decision by Satoshi Nakamoto, who was balancing the threat bitcoin could pose to the traditional economy - greater obfuscation would've been possible to implement but he chose not to go that way. As is bitcoin is extremely transparent to authorities and so it's potential for disruption is lower than if it was really untraceable internet money.
Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments