It's DanielTaylor again and I wanted to create a simple yet intuitive post to explain the folks out there what happened a couple of hours ago.This might also be useful for bloggers or journalists who might be going to write about it in the following hours.The programs that read the blockchain, the bitcoin ledger, disagree.Due to a bug in 0.7, it says that HIS is the correct version of this ledger and 0.8 says that HIS is the correct version.Miners (the people who add pages to the blockchain) are told to switch to the 0.7 program so that this version gains more support and the other one is discarded.Regular users are not affected.Their transactions are included in both ledgers and don't need to change any programs.During that time, though, there is a slight chance of a double-spend ocurring.That is why people recommended merchants and exchanges to wait until there is one single blockchain again before processing purchases and merchandise.As you might already know, there is this decentralized publicly mantained ledger.

This huge ledger that tells everybody how much their bitcoin addresses are worth and how many bitcoins they have.This is the central piece of the Bitcoin network and is called the Blockchain.It is decentralized because everybody can add a new page to the ledger when they have the correct solution to a mathematical problem and there is no central authority.So, what is a fork and why did it happen?In the computer world we use programs that interpret and read files for us.And reading this blockchain is very important for miners, because these are the people who keep trying to find mathematical solutions in order to be allowed to write the next page and get a small (25 BTC) reward.Some miners rely on the 0.8 version of the program and others haven't made the switch yet and rely on the older version, the 0.7.Think of these programs as accountants.There was a bug in the 0.7 version and, this "accountant", told the miners who were using it the following: "The next page is invalid!At the same time, the 0.8 accountant told his people: "WTF is he talking about?

The next page of the ledger is perfectly valid.This is the correct version!"0.7 answered: "Only over my grave!THIS is the correct version".And voilà, as you can see we now have two different ledgers.People who are using the 0.7 version of the program follow one ledger and people with the 0.8 version of the program follow the other ledger.How was the problem solved?There must only be one unified blockchain, which means that we must discard one of the ledgers, while accepting the other as valid.Due to the bug, there was no way the 0.7 accountant would ever accept the new ledger (yes, he is very stubborn).For this reason we told miners to switch to this version so there would be a clear majority and we could discard the other.As you can remember, miners are the people who add new pages to this ledger.Once miners switched to the 0.7 ledger, it became longer (with more additions) than its counterpart and it was clear that this was the winner.Finally, the 0.8 accountant accepted defeat and recognized the longer version as the legitimate one.

(Because he has been cleverly programmed to do so.This is part of the Bitcoin protocol).What did this mean for regular users?A regular user making a transaction during that time would broadcast his transaction to both ledgers and it would be included in both.Obviously one would be abandoned sooner or later, but that doesn't matter to the regular user because he broadcasted it to both and he would be fine with whatever was the outcome.bitcoin core wallet fileAlso, no regular user needed to switch back to 0.7.bitcoin nasıl üye olunurThat was only for miners, because we wanted to concentrate all miners on one side in order to make one ledger longer than the other.dogecoin possible valueFor regular users this didn't matter at all, as all clients would accept the eventual resulting ledger.bitcoin double sha

As you can see, for a regular user, there should have been no problem and there was absolutely no risk of losing bitcoins.The only problem was the increased risk of receiving a double-spend transaction.This is the reason why some merchants and exchanges stopped processing incoming bitcoins for a couple of hours.The bitcoin network prevents people from spending the same coins by mantaining this unique ledger, the blockchain.ethereum price bubbleBut now that there were two of them, it was theoretically possible to broadcast two different transactions with the same coins and still get some confirmations.bitcoin usd google trendsWith some luck, someone could sneakily sneakily* buy a television to a merchant who was reading the 0.8 ledger and have the transaction confirmed.ethereum price rise march 2017

At the same time he could have sent the same coins back to himself and, with some luck, have the transaction confirmed on the 0.7 ledger.What happens is that, in the end when 0.7 wins, the thief will have the television and his bitcoins.Remember that there were two different versions of the same coins!This is not something easy to do and requires a lot of luck because the blocks mined (the pages added to the ledger) must be mined precisely in the correct order.bitcoin guthabenBut still, in this situation it was easier to pull off and so it was recommended for merchants and exchanges to temporarily stop processing incoming transactions.litecoin with nvidiaNow the situation has resolved and the blockchain keeps growing happily, page by page, block y block.As you can see, for the regular user this should have been no trouble at all.People accepting bitcoins just needed to be more careful and wait for the situation to resolve before shipping or giving away their merchandise.