Forkology: A Study of Forks for Newbies - Andreas M. Antonopoulos

In this talk, Andreas introduces newcomers to the emerging scientific speciality of "forkology" or the study of the ways in which network protocols can change in open, voluntary blockchain ecosystems, and the game theory of competing consensus models. He covers not only the various types of forks but the agents involved in consensus evolution, grappling in this crazy new world where the traditional menus will no longer do. This talk took place on June 6th 2017 at a joint meet-up with Blockchain Professionals, BitcoinSYD and SydEthereum in Sydney, Australia: https://antonopoulos.com/event/blockchain-professionals-sydney/ Sponsored by: BitRocket.co, Optiver, Veredictum.io, BitPOS.me, and Get Paid In Bitcoin AU TOPICS: 0:53 - The journey into open public blockchains 2:45 - Price increase brings newbies to the rabbit hole 4:00 - The confusing landscape of forks 4:42 - What is a fork? A divergence in perspective 6:23 - No central authority to determine everyone's perspective 7:55 - Growing the chain, block by block 9:00 - Accidental vs. deliberate forks, 51% attacks 9:50 - Hard forks vs. soft forks and changes to consensus rules 11:30 - Open blockchain ecosystems as restaurants 15:20 - No one's in charge, but everyone has to work together 15:57 - Miner-activated vs. user-activated forks 16:40 - User-activated soft fork (UASF) or BIP148 18:43 - Tensions around assertions of power 19:50 - Forking event: risks of double-spend, wipeout, two Bitcoins 24:30 - A game of chicken, throwing the steering wheel away 25:33 - This sounds crazy! Is it all worth it? Support Andreas: https://antonopoulos.com/donate/ 1andreas3batLhQa2FawWjeyjCqyBzypd Support Andreas by becoming a Patreon https://www.patreon.com/aantonop This audio is from a video first published under a creative commons licence (CC-BY-SA) by the aantonop YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/aantonop on 24 Jun 2017 and can be found here: "Forkology: A Study of Forks for Newbies" https://youtu.be/rpeceXY1QBM https://creativecommons.org