A blockchain hard fork is possible. Is it possible a blockchain merge?

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demo

Well-known member
hi Geeks

We all know that a blockchain hard fork is possible. Bitcoin-cash is a hard fork of bitcoin. And ETH is a hard fork of ETH-classic. The coins are separated now, and they follow their own road.


The question is:
  1. Is it possible bitcoin-cash and bitcoin to merge, and become again a single coin?
  2. Is it possible ETH and ETH-classic to merge, and become again a single coin?
Is this possible, technically? If yes under what prerequisites?
What have we to take into account, in order for a hard forked coin to maintain the capability to merge the parent coin in the future?

I am asking this because I want to hard fork Dash, but I want to be able to merge again, in case the reason that caused the hard fork is ceased.
 
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ok... This is a naive approach of blockchain merge. Tell me what you think about it.

Suppose we have a blockchain of 5 wallets and they fork when the blockchain looks as follows:
w1=1000 w2=500 w3=200 w4=1000 w5=2000 (sum 4700)

The fork1, after several transactions, becomes: 950 550 150 1050 2000 (sum 4700)
And the fork2 becomes: 1000 600 100 1500 1500 (sum 4700)

Now they decide they want to merge again. One possible way to merge is to find the average.
So the merged blockchain will be: 975 575 125 1275 1750 (sum 4700)
What do you think about this blockchain merge? Is it fair?

Another possible algorithm for merging may take into account the number of community members, or the coin capitalization. Lets do a role playing game. Suppose you own one of the above wallets, what algorithm would you require in order to sign the merge as legitimate?
 
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I don't see how this would be possible.
Also, I don't understand why would you even want to do such a thing.
 
Dandy said:
I don't see how this would be possible.
Also, I don't understand why would you even want to do such a thing.
Click to expand...

Some companies divide, while some others merge.
Why not the same for cryptocurrencies?
 
Lets look at another algorithm.

Suppose we have a blockchain of 5 wallets and they fork when the blockchain looks as follows:
w1=1000 w2=500 w3=200 w4=1000 w5=2000 (available supply 4700 coins) . Each coin of this cryptocurrency cost 1 bitcoin. (4700 btc capitalization)

The fork1, after several transactions, becomes: 950 550 150 1050 2000 (available supply 4700 coins). Each coin of fork1 cost 1.5 bitcoin now (7050 btc capitalization)
And the fork2 becomes: 1000 600 100 1500 1500 (available supply 4700 coins). Each coin of fork2 cost 0.7 bitcoin now. (3290 btc capitalization)

Now they decide they want to merge again. One possible way to merge is to take into account the price of each coin, and increase accordingly the coin supply.

So the merged blockchain will be:
w1=950*1,5+1000*0,7= 2125
w2=550*1,5+600*0,7= 1245
w3=150*1,5+100*0,7= 295
w4=1050*1,5+1500*0,7= 2625
w5=2000*1,5+1500*0,7= 4050
(available supply 10340 coins) and let the market decide what is the price of the new merged coin (possibly in between 0,7 and 1,5)

Is this fair for every wallet? So is it possible to merge blockchains?
What the core team thinks about it? @UdjinM6? @codablock?
Let me also call some others to comment here: @GrandMasterDash? @camosoul? @Pietro Speroni?
 
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Here you are, some interesting links about blockchain merge:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=20174.0
Gr.Green said:
Here's a conceptual approach for merging two or more block chains that are created as a result of lack of network connectivity between parts of a network.

http://bitcoinery.tumblr.com/post/6731628999/how-to-merge-bitcoin-block-chains

Essentially, the suggestion is to not simply discard smaller chains, but to merge the differences back into the longest chain. This maintains all existing properties of bitcoin.
Click to expand...

http://bitcoinery.tumblr.com/post/6731628999/how-to-merge-bitcoin-block-chains
Anonymous said:
How to merge bitcoin block chains
Update: After writing this article I have been corrected on Bitcoin forums. It turns out that Bitcoin works as desired and doesn’t lose transactions when the chains are merged. The negative side effect of the way bitcoin function is that any bitcoins generated and later circulated through the network will be lost if the chain they’re in is discarded. This is bad.

In this post we discuss how to merge the block chains to avoid lost transactions.

When networks are disconnected, a fork is created

For Bitcoin to enjoy wider adoption it needs to solve more problems than it creates. One problem is what happens when network connectivity goes down and large chunks of network become disconnected for a long time while still being active. This scenario is easy to imagine because connections go down all the time: an underground cable is severed, network configuration error or a cyber attack come to mind.

Current bitcoin approach is naive and simplistic: longest chain wins. This means that if the network is broken into 2 disjoint sets of nodes, when they reconnect one of the subnetworks is going to lose the blockchain and all transactions recorded. Monetary transactions are reversed while the results of merchant activity cannot be. Disappearing transactions are not a feature of a financial network.

Merging forked chains is easy

Good news. This can easily be solved without much modification to bitcoin infrastructure. No change is needed for the client applications and the structure of transactions, blocks and the block chain don’t need to change from their current state.

Solution is simple: when the network ends up with more than one block chain, take transactions in unique blocks of shorter chains and create a new block with those transactions like nothing happened.

Double Spend is Impossible

Note that this maintains bitcoin’s warranty by not allowing to double spend just like it happens with one chain. This is because when transactions are moved to a new block they are checked for validity in the usual way. This new block is nothing special and behaves by the rules of the network.

Once all unique blocks are processed, the chain is back in one piece and nobody should notice a difference.

An adversary able to use the wallet in both networks can double spend until the networks are joined together again. At that time the double spend transactions in smaller chains will always be discarded. This suggests that there is a possibility of transactions being annulled with merchants suffering the loss. Current state of bitcoin doesn’t solve this problem either. This needs to be approached from other angles.

Click here to view the image explaining this concept.

If this article has made a light bulb go on inside your head and you enjoy the feeling, please donate a small amount to keep the energy flowing: 1PuRm9XmbN2JmzTCEeAPVd8x8w9kMaZKSg
Click to expand...


http://bitcoinery.tumblr.com/post/6731708937/supporting-graphic-for-an-article-on-how-to-merge
tumblr_ln3u9phNy21qlzf20o1_r1_1280.png


I will try to merge pivx and dash, in my lab.
Hope it will succeed. I will report the results here.
 
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Doing so harm scarcity. Therefore, a fork should be definitive, if at any point a chain can be remerge, then it could end up like paper gold, in this case paper dash. Even your attempt to take that into account with market capitalisation is not enough, as it's also more that scarcity, you try to fight against the nature of a Dash itself, and it won't work.
I'm must admit that I'm still very interested on how you will try to merge pivx/dash to be fair
 
Obusco said:
Doing so harm scarcity. Therefore, a fork should be definitive, if at any point a chain can be remerge, then it could end up like paper gold, in this case paper dash. Even your attempt to take that into account with market capitalisation is not enough, as it's also more that scarcity, you try to fight against the nature of a Dash itself, and it won't work.
Click to expand...
The philosphy behind the blockchain merge is simple.
The most powerful thing in a cryptocurrency is considered to be its community.
A cryptocurrency cannot survive wihout a community to support it.
So if we merge the blockhains of two cryptocyrrencies, we hope to unite two communities, thus create a wider and stronger one.
 
https://www.quora.com/Which-cryptocurrencies-are-likely-to-merge-in-the-future-Why
https://www.quora.com/Can-cryptocurrencies-merge-i-e-the-reverse-of-a-fork
https://www.quora.com/Is-it-possible-for-two-cryptocurrencies-to-merge
https://www.quora.com/What-is-needed-for-major-cryptocurrencies-to-merge-What-are-the-bottlenecks

The answer to all the above questions is the below:

Currently, whenever the core team releases the new code of Dash, every masternode who refuses to agree with it is thrown out of the dash network.
Currently, whenever the majority of the masternodes decides to fund a project, the minority cannot prevent the fundation.

Similarly, whenever the majority of the masternodes decides that a merge whith another cryptocurrency should occur, every masternode who refuses to accept the new blockchain , should either be forced (by code) to accept it, or alternatively should be thrown out the the dash network.
 
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An alternative to the merge idea is the internet of blockchains.
https://cosmos.network/
This cryptocurrency is now number 19 in coinmarketcap.
Just below Dash.
I firmly believe that merging/interconnecting cryptocurrencies will be the future trend of the cryptosphere.
The Dash community should not miss this train.
 
I assume blockchain merge is possible but it will create a ruckus among the present coins. Imagine Bitcoin cash merging with Bitcoin and emerging as a Bitcoin. How will the process work?
 
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