Love the fork

While in the short term hard forks can be stressful, in the bigger picture they may be a blessing. 

Our weekly opinion piece and overview View this email in your browser   November 5, 2017 Stop Worrying and Love the Fork It's going to be a stressful month for bitcoin, but in the big picture, breakups can be healthy for the ecosystem – and possibly for society. Find out why in the THE TAKEAWAY below.       TOP TRENDS ON COINDESK ForkFest This week CoinDesk helped readers understand bitcoin's upcoming Segwit2X hard fork – either a long-needed capacity upgrade, a hostile corporate takeover attempt, or a hapless attempt at compromise, depending on one's perspective – with a series of preview articles. First, we explained why this fork is different from the ones that created bitcoin cash and bitcoin gold, and may not necessarily produce a "free" dividend of new coins for existing holders. Next, we took the temperatures of the major constituencies in this ongoing drama. The core devs, though opposed to 2X, are largely resigned to it happening and unconcerned about its chances of becoming "the real bitcoin." The miners are cagier, but many seem unsure whether there will be a chain split or, if there is, which way they will go. As for the startups, they tend to be pro-2X, but acknowledge that ultimately they answer to the market. To help readers navigate the uncertainty, we've put together a landing page with news and guides on the impending historic event for bitcoin. Bookmark it and refresh it as often as you usually refresh the bitcoin price on your phone. (OK, maybe not that often, but once a day at least.)   Devcon3 Ethereum developers from around the world gathered in Cancun, Mexico, for the cryptocurrency protocol's premier annual summit. CoinDesk was on the scene. The star of the show, ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, laid out a multi-year roadmap for scaling the network. Continuing with that theme, Cornell University comp sci professor Elaine Shi described the thunder token, a project that seeks to create a fast and scalable version of distributed consensus. Meanwhile, Jacob Eberhardt debuted ZoKrates, a programming language designed to help developers improve the privacy of ethereum transactions. And speaking of privacy in ethereum, Swarm, the decentralized storage project, had advanced to its third proof of concept, including a test of an "obfuscation method" to protect against government takedowns.   But perhaps the most important theme at Devcon was the effort to improve smart contract security in the wake of disasters like last year's DAO hack. As the Ethereum Foundation's Martin Swende told the crowd: "Everyone here is a target for attack. Be paranoid." A Token for Your Time... Time is money, the old saying goes. Now venture capitalist Balaji Srinivasan's Earn.com (formerly 21 Inc.) and "Dilbert" creator Scott Adams' WhenHub are separately trying to turn that metaphorical truth into a literal one, or at least something closer. See all CoinDesk stories   ⭐ COINDESK SPONSOR ⭐ BitClave is using blockchain to eliminate ad service middlemen and create a direct connection between businesses and customers. On the BitClave Active Search Ecosystem, customers control their identity, decide who has access to their data and are "paid" each time businesses "use" their data to make them offers. Learn more!     QUOTE OF THE WEEK   "It's one of the greatest pieces of persuasion the world's ever seen." – "Dilbert" creator Scott Adams, on bitcoin   THE TAKEAWAY  November is going to be a nail-biter for bitcoin. It's unclear whether the Segwit2X hard fork, expected to take place around Nov. 18, will leave us with one or two cryptocurrencies. And with more than $110 billion of value on the line, it's far from assured that investors will come out ahead. But let's take a deep breath, step back and appreciate the beauty of the situation. Because while in the short term hard forks can be stressful, in the bigger picture they may be a blessing.  The reason is that forks potentially represent a welcome innovation in the way people can resolve their differences.  Simply put, forks offer the possibility of exit. They give dissident minorities a third option beyond trying to change the majority's minds or adapting to their preferences. A fork is a bloodless, 21st-century form of secession. This is hardly an original observation on my part. In his recent essay entitled "Blockchain Man," Tyler Pearson imagines a future where distributed computing leads to "a society defined by forking. The balance between voice and exit will tilt towards exit. ... If you disagree with a decision, you can fork a new blockchain."   It's a tantalizing thought. For now, though, the reality is messier. True, bitcoin cash, bitcoin gold and ethereum classic are examples of forks where, despite some trolling between camps, the prevailing attitude was "you do you." But the controversies over Segwit2X and its predecessors (Bitcoin XT, Classic and Unlimited) have had more of a zero-sum character, sometimes approaching tribal warfare.    Why can't one side just fork and let live? "Nobody wants to admit they're 'the other guy,'" said Andrea O'Sullivan, technology policy program manager at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. "They want to be the main guy." A charitable interpretation is that "people are very emotionally attached to the concept of bitcoin," she said. "They had their own idea of what it was and wanted to lay claim to Satoshi's vision." A less flattering explanation, not mutually exclusive with the first, is that this fight is ultimately about money. "You're talking about something rivalrous at the end of the day," O'Sullivan said. Oddly enough, there's a case that enterprise blockchain (of all things) is where forking could really give individuals greater agency. For example, Preston Byrne, an independent consultant and founder of Tomram LLC, foresees a day when much of the work at law firms is automated, in part with open-source, standardized blockchain software.  In this world, a restless lawyer might realize that his employer's infrastructure is easily replicable with code from the public domain, and think, "I can automate so much of this drudgery. Why not go fork off and do my own thing, and let the machines handle the back office?" said Byrne. Fork off and do your own thing – that's the American dream. So with Thanksgiving a few weeks away, let's give thanks for forks, both the culinary and software varieties. – Marc Hochstein MORE BACKGROUND: Bitcoin or Bitcoin2x? News & Guides to Navigate November's Fork Understanding Segwit2x: Why Bitcoin's Next Fork Might Not Mean Free Money Bitcoin 'Battle'? Core Developers Apathetic as Segwit2x Fork Approaches Free Market Forks? Bitcoin Startups Love the Idea But Brace for Reality Split or No Split? Bitcoin Miners See No Certainty in Segwit2x Fork Share Tweet Beyond CoinDesk... OTHERS ARE TALKING ABOUT Everyone in crypto, it seems, has a horror story about losing coins after their account was hacked or their private key lost or stolen. This one in Wired – involving a Trezor hardware wallet, a handwritten recovery phrase thrown away by the housekeeper and a PIN that the author desperately tried to recall at a hypnotist's office – is especially riveting. Bloomberg offers a pretty thorough analysis of CME Group's plan to introduce trading of bitcoin futures. It's a sign that the cryptocurrency is gaining legitimacy, no matter what Jamie Dimon says, according to the article. Speaking of Dimon, Institutional Investor magazine interprets the JPMorgan CEO's recent anti-bitcoin rants as an attempt to protect his turf as a trusted middleman from decentralized alternatives.  Forbes reports that Alex Tapscott, co-author of "Blockchain Revolution," falsely identified several blockchain luminaries as advisors in pitch decks while raising money for his VC firm. UPCOMING EVENTS (see more in our full listing) November 7-9: Developer Week, Austin, Texas November 8-9: Blockchain for Business and IT Leaders, Boston, MA November 9-10: Asia Digital Asset & Blockchain Congress, Shenzen, China November 9-10: Latin American Blockchain Forum, Los Cabos, Mexico November 10: The StartEngine ICO 2.0 Summit, Santa Monica, CA WHAT WE'VE BEEN UP TO Welcome, Brady Dale to the CoinDesk editorial team! The veteran technology reporter just joined us from the Observer (the New York publication that spawned "Sex & the City" back in the 1990s). Among other accomplishments, he wrote what may be the authoritative story of the Useless Ethereum Token. (Bitcoin maximalists, hold your "aren't they all?" wisecracks.) At CoinDesk, Brady will be covering ICOs and the emerging token economy, possibly the hottest part of the blockchain space at the moment. Follow him on Twitter @BradyDale, and of course us @CoinDesk. And since this is my first outing with CoinDesk's weekly, please send your unvarnished feedback to marc@coindesk.com, or tweet me @MarcHochstein. But please, no ICO pitches – I get so many, I may have to start using Earn.com to deter spammers.  See you next week! Copyright © 2017 CoinDesk, All rights reserved. You're receiving this email because you subscribed for updates on our website. Our mailing address is: CoinDesk 636 Avenue of the Americas New York City, NY 10011 Add us to your address book Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list Received this from a friend? Subscribe here.