Pieter Wuille



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Activity: 1064

Merit: 1038







LegendaryActivity: 1064Merit: 1038 Alert: chain fork caused by pre-0.8 clients dealing badly with large blocks March 12, 2013, 01:29:57 AM

Last edit: March 12, 2013, 10:22:27 PM by theymos #1



there is an emergency right now: the block chain has split between 0.7+earlier and 0.8 nodes. I'll explain the reasons in a minute, but this is what you need to know now: After a discussion on #bitcoin-dev, it seems trying to get everyone on the old chain again is the least risky solution.

If you're a miner, please do not mine on 0.8 code. Stop, or switch back to 0.7. BTCGuild is switching to 0.7, so the old chain will get a majority hash rate soon.

If you're a merchant: please stop processing transactions until the chains converge.

If you're on 0.7 or older, the client will likely tell you that you need to upgrade. Do not follow this advise - the warning should go away as soon as the old chain catches up.

If you are not a merchant or a miner, don't worry.

Quote from: etotheipi on March 12, 2013, 02:40:59 AM The original post lacked info for "regular users". Here it is:



(1) If you are a "regular user" (not a miner), the best thing is to do nothing and wait a couple hours.

(2) If you are a "regular user", upgrading, downgrading, whining, FUD, etc, will make no difference. Only miners have an incentive to do anything. Otherwise, it doesn't matter which version you are running.

(3) Regardless of who you are, your transactions are not dead, your coins are not lost. They will just temporarily be held up. If you sent a transaction within the last few hours, it may take a few more hours before it's sorted out.

(4) If you insist on processing transactions right now it's probably best to wait 30+ confirmations. It's just due diligence though ... an attacker would still need a tremendous amount of mining power, quick thinking, and a victim willing to part with a lot of BTC.

(5) By tomorrow this will be in the past and everything will appear to be normal again. If you slept through this, you'd never know that anything happend (except for the price drop).



Let me reiterate, your coins are not at risk, your transactions are not lost. It'll just take some time for the network to "iron itself out." Everything will be okay.

Hello everyone,there is an emergency right now: the block chain has split between 0.7+earlier and 0.8 nodes. I'll explain the reasons in a minute, but this is what you need to know now: I do Bitcoin stuff.