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|author=[[Gavin Andresen]]<br/>[[Mike Hearn]]
|author=[[Gavin Andresen]]<br/>[[Mike Hearn]]
|website=[https://bitcoinxt.software bitcoinxt.software]
|website=[https://bitcoinxt.software bitcoinxt.software]
}}'''Bitcoin XT''' is a fork of [[Bitcoin Core]] that aims to make transactions reliable, inexpensive, and accessible. It achieved significant notoriety after adopting [[BIP 0101]], making it an important proponent of the [[block size limit controversy]].
}}'''Bitcoin XT''' was a fork of [[Bitcoin Core]] created by [[Mike Hearn]] in 2014. Originally designed to introduce alternative P2P rules, it later gained significant notoriety and support after its adoption of [[BIP 0101|BIP 101]] without community support in 2015, giving it importance in the [[block size limit controversy]].<ref name="ooc">{{cite web|work=The Neighbourhood Pool Watch|author=organofcorti|title=BIP101 implementation flaws|date=27 August 2015|accessdate=27 August 2015|url=http://organofcorti.blogspot.com/2015/08/bip101-implementation-flaws.html}}</ref> After Andresen's resignation from the position of [[Bitcoin Core]] maintainer, he and [[Mike Hearn]] organized Bitcoin XT to address several controversial ideas lacking the consensus required to be implemented in Bitcoin Core.<ref>{{cite web|work=Medium|title=An XT FAQ|author=[[Mike Hearn|Hearn, Mike]]|date=27 August 2015|accessdate=27 August 2015|url=https://medium.com/@octskyward/an-xt-faq-38e78aa32ff0}}</ref>


After the inauguration of [[Wladimir van der Laan]] to the position of [[Core maintainer]], Bitcoin XT was organized by [[Gavin Andresen]] and [[Mike Hearn]] to address controversial ideas lacking the consensus required to be implemented in Bitcoin Core.{{when}}
BIP 101 was implemented in Bitcoin XT on August 6, 2015<ref>[https://github.com/bitcoinxt/bitcoinxt/commit/946e3ba8c7806a66c2b834d3817ff0c986c0811b]</ref> and released on August 15.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://medium.com/@octskyward/why-is-bitcoin-forking-d647312d22c1|title=Why is Bitcoin forking? — Faith and future|author=Mike Hearn|work=Medium}}</ref> If 75% of the last 1000 blocks were observed to have particular version bits set, it would have ceased enforcing the 1 MB block size limit and also have added a few new rules. However, this threshold was never achieved and no new XT blocks are being created today.{{citation needed}}


Once 75% of the last 1000 blocks are observed to be in support of XT, a [[hardfork]] will occur and XT nodes will separate from the rest of the network, implementing several changes, most notably an increase in block size.
In January 2016, BIP 101 was removed from Bitcoin XT and replaced with the one-time block size increase to 2 MB present in [[Bitcoin Classic]].<ref>https://github.com/bitcoinxt/bitcoinxt/pull/117</ref> In the year following this change, adoption of Bitcoin XT decreased dramatically, with fewer than 30 nodes remaining by January 2017.<ref name="cdns">{{cite web |url=https://coin.dance/nodes/xt |title=Bitcoin XT Nodes Summary |work=coin.dance |accessdate=7 January 2017 }}</ref> Later attempts by other codebases to increase the block size to 2 MB including Bitcoin Classic and [[SegWit2x]] have also failed.<ref name="cd">{{cite web|url=https://www.coindesk.com/no-fork-no-fire-segwit2x-nodes-stall-running-abandoned-bitcoin-code/|title=No Fork, No Fire: Segwit2x Nodes Stall Running Abandoned Bitcoin Code|work=[[CoinDesk]]|author=Higgins, Stan|date=November 17, 2017|accessdate=November 29, 2017}}</ref>


==Mission statement==
==Miners==
<!--this needs to be summarized or removed-->
Miners that side with Bitcoin XT will produce blocks with a new version number.<ref name="avc">{{cite web|title=The Bitcoin XT Fork|work=AVC|author=Wilson, Fred|date=17 August 2015|accessdate=28 August 2015|url=http://avc.com/2015/08/the-bitcoin-xt-fork/}}</ref> This indicates to the rest of the network that they support XT.<ref name="avc"/> When 75% of the last 1000 blocks are new-version blocks, these miners will automatically abandon Bitcoin and begin mining on a new Bitcoin XT blockchain.<ref name="avc"/> This will begin after a waiting period of two weeks in hopes the economy in this time may force anyone who hasn't switched yet to do so.<ref name="avc"/>
The XT mission statement defines what the project believes is important: commitment to these principles are what differentiates us from Bitcoin Core. We try to follow Satoshi's original vision, as it is that vision which brought the Bitcoin community together.
 
Users and miners running full Bitcoin nodes will reject the XT blockchain starting with the first block that is larger than one megabyte in size, and thus be unaffected provided it fails to achieve economic consensus.
 
==Users and merchants==
If insufficient mining hash power runs XT to reach supermajority then nothing will happen. If enough does, XT users will follow a new blockchain and cease to be using and trading bitcoins.


* '''Scaling the network up to handle user demand is important''', even if that means the network changes along the way. It's what Satoshi wanted<ref>[http://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/emails/cryptography/2/ Re: Bitcoin P2P e-cash paper]</ref> and the idea of a global system used by ordinary people is what motivated many of us to join him.
==Controversy==
* '''XT provides people with information they need''', even if using it requires them to make risk based decisions. For example:
** We believe '''unconfirmed transactions are important'''. Many merchants want or need to accept payments within seconds rather than minutes or hours. XT accepts this fact and does what it can to minimise the risk, then help sellers judge what remains. It is committed to the first seen rule<ref>[http://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/emails/cryptography/8/ Re: Bitcoin P2P e-cash paper]</ref>. We will not adopt changes that make unconfirmed transactions riskier.
** '''Lightweight wallets are important'''. Most users cannot or will not run a fully verifying node. Most of the world population does not even own a computer: they will experience the internet exclusively via smartphones. These users must sacrifice some security in order to participate, so XT supports whatever technical tradeoffs wallet developers wish to explore.
* '''Decision making is quick and clear'''. Decisions are made according to a leadership hierarchy. The XT software encodes decisions that follow the above principles: people who disagree are welcome to use different software, or patch ours. We do not consider writing principled software to be centralising and do not refuse to select reasonable defaults.
* The Bitcoin XT community is friendly, pragmatic, cares about app developers and considers the user experience in everything we do. We value professionalism in technical approach and communication. We run a moderated mailing list and do not tolerate troublemakers.


You can [https://bitcoinxt.software/patches.html read more about the code changes in Bitcoin XT].  
Later in January 2016, frustrated of his proposal being massively outvoted, Mike Hearn made a media stunt declaring on various US national and international press agencies that "Bitcoin has failed". Max Keiser quoted Bram Cohen <ref>Whiny Ragequitting https://medium.com/@bramcohen/whiny-ragequitting-cab164b1e88</ref> in describing Hearn's move as "whiny rage quitting" <ref>Mike Hearn's move from Bitcoin to Banks - Stacy Herbert, Max Keiser & Simon Dixon discuss https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubqjei3Jd-U</ref>  and other members of the community pointed to an extensive account of manipulations http://gettopical.com/bitcoin/e289a9a5189008d994e80666e9038089 (unfortunately today many twitter screenshots are broken).


==Block size hard fork==
==History==
Many years ago, a capacity limit was introduced into Bitcoin by [[Satoshi]]. He intended it to be removed once lightweight wallets were developed, however, this was never done. It is expected that soon Bitcoin will be out of capacity and experiencing reliability problems as a result. The Bitcoin Core developers are currently unwilling to increase the block chain's capacity, so miners and users who disagree with them must either switch to Bitcoin XT, or apply the bigblocks patches<ref>[https://github.com/bitcoinxt/bitcoinxt/tree/only-bigblocks Big blocks patches on GitHub]</ref> manually.
On June 10, 2014 Mike Hearn published a ''Bitcoin Improvement Proposal'' (BIP 64), calling for the addition of "a small P2P protocol extension that performs [[UTXO]] lookups given a set of outpoints."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0064.mediawiki|title=bips/bip-0064.mediawiki at master · bitcoin/bips · GitHub|work=GitHub}}</ref>  On December 27, 2014 Hearn released version 0.10 of the client, with the BIP 64 changes.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://github.com/bitcoinxt/bitcoinxt/releases/tag/v0.10|title=bitcoinxt/bitcoinxt|website=GitHub}}</ref>


There has been much community [[Block size limit controversy|debate]] on this topic. You can read analysis and explanations for why we think raising the block size limit is important here:  
On June 22, 2015, [[Gavin Andresen]] published BIP 101 calling for an increase in the maximum block size. The changes would activate a fork allowing eight MB blocks (doubling in size every two years) once 75% of a stretch of 1,000 mined blocks is achieved after the beginning of 2016.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0101.mediawiki|title=bips/bip-0101.mediawiki at master · bitcoin/bips · GitHub|work=GitHub}}</ref> The new maximum transaction rate under XT would have been 24 transactions per second.<ref name="edov">{{Cite news |url=http://www.pcworld.com/article/2974339/bitcoin-xt-debate-overshadowing-growth-opportunities.html |title=Bitcoin XT debate overshadowing growth opportunities |author=Tim Hornyak |accessdate=7 January 2017 |date=21 August 2015 |work=PC World |publisher=IDG }}</ref>


* [http://gavinandresen.ninja/ A series of essays] by [[Gavin Andresen]]
On August 6, 2015 Andresen's BIP101 proposal was merged into the XT codebase.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://github.com/bitcoinxt/bitcoinxt/commit/946e3ba8c7806a66c2b834d3817ff0c986c0811b|title=Implement hard fork to allow bigger blocks · bitcoinxt/bitcoinxt@946e3ba|website=GitHub}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://github.com/bitcoinxt/bitcoinxt/releases/tag/v0.11A|title=bitcoinxt/bitcoinxt|website=GitHub}}</ref> Bip 101 was reverted<ref>{{cite web|url=https://github.com/bitcoinxt/bitcoinxt/pull/117|title=2MB block size bump by dgenr8 · Pull Request #117 · bitcoinxt/bitcoinxt|website=GitHub}}</ref> and the 2-MB block size bump of [[Bitcoin Classic]] was applied instead.
* [https://medium.com/@octskyward/crash-landing-f5cc19908e32 Why the block size limit must be raised] and [https://medium.com/@octskyward/the-capacity-cliff-586d1bf7715e why the proposed alternative schemes will not work], by [[Mike Hearn]].


==Miners==
== Reception ==
Miners that side with Bitcoin XT will produce blocks with a new version number. This indicates to the rest of the network that they support XT. When 75% of the last 1000 blocks are new-version blocks, a decision will have been reached to start building larger blocks that will be rejected by Bitcoin Core nodes. This will begin after a waiting period of two weeks to allow news of the new consensus to spread and allow anyone who hasn't upgraded yet to do so. During this time, existing Bitcoin Core nodes will be [[alert system|printing a message]] notifying the operators about the availability of an upgraded version.
The August 2015 release of XT received widespread media coverage. ''The Guardian'' wrote that "bitcoin is facing civil war".<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/aug/17/bitcoin-xt-alternative-cryptocurrency-chief-scientist|title=Bitcoin's forked: chief scientist launches alternative proposal for the currency|author=Alex Hern|date=17 August 2015|newspaper=the Guardian|accessdate=20 August 2015}}</ref>


If the hard fork occurs and you are still mining with Bitcoin Core, your node will reject the first new block that is larger than one megabyte in size. At that point there is a risk your newly mined coins will not be accepted at major exchanges or merchants.
''Wired'' wrote that "Bitcoin XT exposes the extremely social — extremely democratic — underpinnings of the open source idea, an approach that makes open source so much more powerful than technology controlled by any one person or organization."<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.wired.com/2015/08/bitcoin-schism-shows-genius-open-source/|title=The Bitcoin Schism Shows the Genius of Open Source|date=19 August 2015|work=WIRED|author=Cade Metz}}</ref> Hashcash developer [[Adam Back]] was critical of the 75% activation threshold being too low and that some of the changes were insecure.<ref name="bisp">{{Cite news |url=https://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/20/bitcoin-splits-will-it-break-or-be-better-than-ever.html |title=Bitcoin splits: Will it break, or be better than ever? |author=Everett Rosenfeld |accessdate=5 January 2017 |date=20 August 2015 |work=CNBC }}</ref>


==Users and merchants==
==Bitcoin Cash support==
If insufficient mining hash power runs XT to reach supermajority then nothing will happen. If enough does, you will follow the new chain and things will continue as normal.


Additionally, XT has a useful feature: double spend monitoring and relaying. By running XT you help propagate information about double spends across the network, making it harder for payment fraudsters to steal from sellers by broadcasting two conflicting transactions simultaneously.
On August 25, 2017, Bitcoin XT published ''Release G'', which was a Bitcoin Cash client by default.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://github.com/bitcoinxt/bitcoinxt/releases|title=Bitcoin XT Releases|accessdate=17 June 2018}}</ref> Subsequently, ''Release H'' was published, which supported the November 2017 Bitcoin Cash protocol upgrade, followed by ''Release I'', which supported the May 2018 Bitcoin Cash protocol upgrade.


==See Also==
==See Also==
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[[Category:Block size limit controversy]]
[[Category:Block size limit controversy]]
[[Category:Direct code forks of Bitcoin Core]]
[[Category:Direct code forks of Bitcoin Core]]
[[Category:Failed hardforks]]
[[Category:Contentious hardforks]]
[[Category:User Interfaces]]
[[Category:Frontends]]
[[Category:Free Software]]
[[Category:Open Source]]

Latest revision as of 20:48, 30 June 2020

Bitcoin XT


The identifying marks of an XT client
Original authorsGavin Andresen
Mike Hearn
Websitebitcoinxt.software

Bitcoin XT was a fork of Bitcoin Core created by Mike Hearn in 2014. Originally designed to introduce alternative P2P rules, it later gained significant notoriety and support after its adoption of BIP 101 without community support in 2015, giving it importance in the block size limit controversy.[1] After Andresen's resignation from the position of Bitcoin Core maintainer, he and Mike Hearn organized Bitcoin XT to address several controversial ideas lacking the consensus required to be implemented in Bitcoin Core.[2]

BIP 101 was implemented in Bitcoin XT on August 6, 2015[3] and released on August 15.[4] If 75% of the last 1000 blocks were observed to have particular version bits set, it would have ceased enforcing the 1 MB block size limit and also have added a few new rules. However, this threshold was never achieved and no new XT blocks are being created today.[citation needed]

In January 2016, BIP 101 was removed from Bitcoin XT and replaced with the one-time block size increase to 2 MB present in Bitcoin Classic.[5] In the year following this change, adoption of Bitcoin XT decreased dramatically, with fewer than 30 nodes remaining by January 2017.[6] Later attempts by other codebases to increase the block size to 2 MB including Bitcoin Classic and SegWit2x have also failed.[7]

Miners

Miners that side with Bitcoin XT will produce blocks with a new version number.[8] This indicates to the rest of the network that they support XT.[8] When 75% of the last 1000 blocks are new-version blocks, these miners will automatically abandon Bitcoin and begin mining on a new Bitcoin XT blockchain.[8] This will begin after a waiting period of two weeks in hopes the economy in this time may force anyone who hasn't switched yet to do so.[8]

Users and miners running full Bitcoin nodes will reject the XT blockchain starting with the first block that is larger than one megabyte in size, and thus be unaffected provided it fails to achieve economic consensus.

Users and merchants

If insufficient mining hash power runs XT to reach supermajority then nothing will happen. If enough does, XT users will follow a new blockchain and cease to be using and trading bitcoins.

Controversy

Later in January 2016, frustrated of his proposal being massively outvoted, Mike Hearn made a media stunt declaring on various US national and international press agencies that "Bitcoin has failed". Max Keiser quoted Bram Cohen [9] in describing Hearn's move as "whiny rage quitting" [10] and other members of the community pointed to an extensive account of manipulations http://gettopical.com/bitcoin/e289a9a5189008d994e80666e9038089 (unfortunately today many twitter screenshots are broken).

History

On June 10, 2014 Mike Hearn published a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP 64), calling for the addition of "a small P2P protocol extension that performs UTXO lookups given a set of outpoints."[11] On December 27, 2014 Hearn released version 0.10 of the client, with the BIP 64 changes.[12]

On June 22, 2015, Gavin Andresen published BIP 101 calling for an increase in the maximum block size. The changes would activate a fork allowing eight MB blocks (doubling in size every two years) once 75% of a stretch of 1,000 mined blocks is achieved after the beginning of 2016.[13] The new maximum transaction rate under XT would have been 24 transactions per second.[14]

On August 6, 2015 Andresen's BIP101 proposal was merged into the XT codebase.[15][16] Bip 101 was reverted[17] and the 2-MB block size bump of Bitcoin Classic was applied instead.

Reception

The August 2015 release of XT received widespread media coverage. The Guardian wrote that "bitcoin is facing civil war".[18]

Wired wrote that "Bitcoin XT exposes the extremely social — extremely democratic — underpinnings of the open source idea, an approach that makes open source so much more powerful than technology controlled by any one person or organization."[19] Hashcash developer Adam Back was critical of the 75% activation threshold being too low and that some of the changes were insecure.[20]

Bitcoin Cash support

On August 25, 2017, Bitcoin XT published Release G, which was a Bitcoin Cash client by default.[21] Subsequently, Release H was published, which supported the November 2017 Bitcoin Cash protocol upgrade, followed by Release I, which supported the May 2018 Bitcoin Cash protocol upgrade.

See Also

References

  1. ↑ organofcorti (27 August 2015). "BIP101 implementation flaws". The Neighbourhood Pool Watch. http://organofcorti.blogspot.com/2015/08/bip101-implementation-flaws.html. Retrieved 27 August 2015.
  2. ↑ Hearn, Mike (27 August 2015). "An XT FAQ". Medium. https://medium.com/@octskyward/an-xt-faq-38e78aa32ff0. Retrieved 27 August 2015.
  3. ↑ [1]
  4. ↑ Mike Hearn. "Why is Bitcoin forking? — Faith and future". Medium. https://medium.com/@octskyward/why-is-bitcoin-forking-d647312d22c1.
  5. ↑ https://github.com/bitcoinxt/bitcoinxt/pull/117
  6. ↑ "Bitcoin XT Nodes Summary". coin.dance. https://coin.dance/nodes/xt. Retrieved 7 January 2017.
  7. ↑ Higgins, Stan (November 17, 2017). "No Fork, No Fire: Segwit2x Nodes Stall Running Abandoned Bitcoin Code". CoinDesk. https://www.coindesk.com/no-fork-no-fire-segwit2x-nodes-stall-running-abandoned-bitcoin-code/. Retrieved November 29, 2017.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 Wilson, Fred (17 August 2015). "The Bitcoin XT Fork". AVC. http://avc.com/2015/08/the-bitcoin-xt-fork/. Retrieved 28 August 2015.
  9. ↑ Whiny Ragequitting https://medium.com/@bramcohen/whiny-ragequitting-cab164b1e88
  10. ↑ Mike Hearn's move from Bitcoin to Banks - Stacy Herbert, Max Keiser & Simon Dixon discuss https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubqjei3Jd-U
  11. ↑ "bips/bip-0064.mediawiki at master · bitcoin/bips · GitHub". GitHub. https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0064.mediawiki.
  12. ↑ "bitcoinxt/bitcoinxt". https://github.com/bitcoinxt/bitcoinxt/releases/tag/v0.10.
  13. ↑ "bips/bip-0101.mediawiki at master · bitcoin/bips · GitHub". GitHub. https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0101.mediawiki.
  14. ↑ Tim Hornyak (21 August 2015). "Bitcoin XT debate overshadowing growth opportunities". PC World (IDG). http://www.pcworld.com/article/2974339/bitcoin-xt-debate-overshadowing-growth-opportunities.html. Retrieved 7 January 2017.
  15. ↑ "Implement hard fork to allow bigger blocks · bitcoinxt/bitcoinxt@946e3ba". https://github.com/bitcoinxt/bitcoinxt/commit/946e3ba8c7806a66c2b834d3817ff0c986c0811b.
  16. ↑ "bitcoinxt/bitcoinxt". https://github.com/bitcoinxt/bitcoinxt/releases/tag/v0.11A.
  17. ↑ "2MB block size bump by dgenr8 · Pull Request #117 · bitcoinxt/bitcoinxt". https://github.com/bitcoinxt/bitcoinxt/pull/117.
  18. ↑ Alex Hern (17 August 2015). "Bitcoin's forked: chief scientist launches alternative proposal for the currency". the Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/aug/17/bitcoin-xt-alternative-cryptocurrency-chief-scientist. Retrieved 20 August 2015.
  19. ↑ Cade Metz (19 August 2015). "The Bitcoin Schism Shows the Genius of Open Source". WIRED. https://www.wired.com/2015/08/bitcoin-schism-shows-genius-open-source/.
  20. ↑ Everett Rosenfeld (20 August 2015). "Bitcoin splits: Will it break, or be better than ever?". CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/20/bitcoin-splits-will-it-break-or-be-better-than-ever.html. Retrieved 5 January 2017.
  21. ↑ "Bitcoin XT Releases". https://github.com/bitcoinxt/bitcoinxt/releases. Retrieved 17 June 2018.
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