Conversation about the ETC/ETH Consensus-Through-Split event

response to steemit.com/crypto-news/@poesis/ethereum-trials-consensus-through-split

@anonymous
keeping money on both chains is NOT risk-free if the ether has been in your wallet since before the hard fork. this creates a problem where you can send ether to an address and the network will send both ether and ETC to that address from both of your (now separate) wallets. the way to avoid this problem is to purchase ether on both chains now, after the fork went into effect, but that costs money and is therefore not risk-free, either. there is no "safe" route.

@poesis
If the split is something temporary, and what could be viewed as a consensus-reaching process, then I doubt people would have enough time to make actual payment with all of their stake. Most hold stake to profit and not to actually use it right now. But if you take the angle that "two coins have been born" and that these two chains will compete forever, then sure, separating coins could be a good idea.

The two competing chains may be the mainstream narrative, but I don't see that as what's happening. The split is a voting-process and it will be over eventually. It's temporary, and that angle changes the narrative. The split could even be viewed as part of the Ethereum protocol, and as what I called "Consensus-Through-Split".

During the split, transaction relay is more of a feature since it for example lets you make payments with sub-currencies where the merchant may want to be secure that they will have actually received the payment once the split is over.

(I wrote that article.)

@anonymous
one can change their vote over time. the big mining pools can change their opinion and choose to support one blockchain or the other. the vote is only over when one side is dead or they become two separate entities that will live on their own. i agree that this is a feature of the ethereum network but that does not mean it will be over quickly and painlessly. some people could lose a lot of money by holding coins on the losing chain

@poesis
If its seen as a fight to the death, using capital as the weapon, then the value of post-fork ETH should more or less equal ETC+ETH. If post-fork ETH == ETC+ETH, then you don't really loose money if you just hold your coins. You only loose out on the possibility to profit from loosing bets. Those who want to bet can make big profits, and they also do real work as they vote over if we want an immutable Ethereum, or one mutable by community consensus. But they can also make big losses. I called this process "Consensus-Through-Split" and it's ongoing now. The network can still be used as long as transactions are mirrored on both chains, sub-currency payments can still be accepted as long as the merchant receives a payment on both chains. The transaction history will survive as long as the community views it this way.