A Bitcoin fork? It’s already happened… Hundreds of times

Steven Dryall
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A Bitcoin fork? It’s already happened… Hundreds of times

There is a lot of dialogue surrounding the potential for a Bitcoin fork. The reasons behind it and the potential impact of forking the original bitcoin blockchain are beyond the scope of this article and is better left for debate by others. This article is here to draw attention to what makes bitcoin truly revolutionary and remind us all of what people in the digital money space are really trying to achieve.

Bitcoin was designed to be decentralized. This means it is not supposed to be controlled by any single entity. To ensure decentralization, bitcoin was created as open-source software. This not only enables anyone to modify the software but it also obligates those who make changes to share them. The entire system was founded on the concept of equality so ultimately the version used by the most users is the preferred network.

This changed when mining became centralized, which was not originally intended by the idealistic vision of what bitcoin should enable. But because of the open-source nature of the software there have been many spin-offs, a.k.a. “forks”, of the original. These are generally referred to as “altcoins” (“alternative coins”). An altcoin is any coin that is not the original Bitcoin. Any person, group, team or company working on a blockchain project or digital money system, that is not Bitcoin, is actually working on an altcoin.

The only well known (or possibly only) example of a digital money project that is not an altcoin, but actually an alternate implementation of Bitcoin, is BCOIN. The BCOIN project has successfully created a separate application of the Bitcoin protocol with a valid block being produced on the network [1]. Otherwise, the majority of Bitcoin related technical activity is actually focused on one particular code base.

There are literally hundreds of altcoins already in existence. You can take a look over at cryptodatabase.net to see a comprehensive list [2]. Many of these coins have never gained any traction and very few of them will become viable (according to the three pillars of digital money viability [3]) but they are all products of the open-source nature of the original bitcoin software.

It is the ability to reliably exchange value without an intermediary that makes digital money systems able to change how the World functions.

Digital money systems are the foundation for changing the essence of economics. A fork of Bitcoin is not new but it will show us what can happen under extreme circumstances, as they have specifically been applied to the Bitcoin network. Anyone who is involved with digital money inevitably has to transact with Bitcoin but if you don’t like how developments are transpiring, the tools are openly available to start your very own… Fork or coin.

Steven Dryall – Principal of Incipient Industries

 

[1] https://btcmanager.com/alternative-implementation-bcoin-mines-its-first-block/

[2] http://cryptodatabase.net

[3] https://medium.com/coineer/the-three-pillars-of-digital-money-viability-385ab571469c

 

Irwin Stein

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Irwin Stein

With over 40 years of securities law experience, not only as a seasoned professional but as a Professor at Golden Gate University in San Francisco. Mr. Stein brings a wealth of knowledge to readers of CryptoWorldJournal.

Having learned about the stock brokerage industry working as an attorney at Paine Webber and EF Hutton. Mr. Stein learned margin from the head of the margin department; trading from the traders on the trading desks and exchange floors; investment banking from the investment bankers.

Securities law can be nuanced and complex. A lawyer who is writing a prospectus does not have the same “vision” of the document as an attorney who is litigating about it. Mr. Stein have written offering documents for more than 150 syndicated financings and have litigated over hundreds more.

Mr. Stein was the General Counsel of a national real estate firm with $1.5 billion worth of properties under management before turning 40. After returned to private practice, in the early 1990s, time was split time between teaching (at Golden Gate University in San Francisco) and working as an advocate, consultant and expert witness in securities arbitrations and more complex financial litigation.

Throughout, Mr. Stein have counseled start-ups and entrepreneurs across many industries. During the dot.com days, Mr. Stein was the adviser to several start-ups and served on the Board of Directors of one company until it was ready to hire full-time management.

Shashank Pattekar

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Shashank Pattekar

With Bachelor of Economics from The London School of Economics & Political Science and  MSc  in Mathematical Trading and Finance from Cass Business School, Mr. Pattekar brings 17 years of trading and market analysis experience, having worked at Merrill Lynch, London Business, School, Goldman Sachs, Mitsui & Co and RiskSave Technologies.

Mr. Pattekar areas of expertise include:

– Financial Market Analysis: Commodities, Equities, Fixed Income and Forex
– Fintech, Blockchain and Cryptocurrency
– Global Macroeconomics
– Geopolitics and Current Affairs
– The Global Banking Industry and Regulation
– Investment Analysis and Investor Education
– Technical and Fundamental Analysis

Yuliana Umanets

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Yuliana Umanets

Yuliana is a PhD candidate at St. Thomas University in Miami, FL and a former professional athlete.  She has devoted her life to bettering life of student athletes worldwide.

After her professional tennis career, Yuliana decided to further her education as a student athlete at the University of Minnesota.  At the U of M she received the Big 10 Distinguished Scholar and Academic all-Big 10 awards all 4 years of attendance.

Yuliana has a BS in Business & Marketing, and a minor in Sport Management from the U of M.  Yuliana went on to the University of St. Thomas where she acquired her MBA in Business with a specialization in Sport Administration.

While at St. Thomas, Yuliana acted as a graduate teaching assistant to the Director of the Sport Administration program and was responsible for creating the content for the department’s online curriculum.

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