‘The audacity met reality’: Why Mt. Gox’s Bitcoin hard fork died in 17 hours

Security is the key feature to look into when in the field of cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin has time and again proved to be the most secure network, driven by a social consensus mechanism.

However, Bitcoin’s security feature faced yet another critical test, to which it responded swiftly.

What would this mean for its security and, in turn, its overall trend over the long term?

Mt. Gox’s Bitcoin hard fork proposal dies in hours

According to a post by CoinMarketCap, the ex-CEO of Mt. Gox, Mark Karpeles, proposed a hard fork for Bitcoin [BTC] on the 27th of February, which died in only 17 hours.

The proposal was to redirect 79,956 BTC from a dormant address linked to the 2011 hack to a designated recovery address that was controlled by the Mt. Gox trustee.

Karpeles was referencing the 2016 DAO fork for Ethereum [ETH], which recovered funds but created Ethereum Classic [ETC].

If this proposal passed, it would validate spending the stolen coins without the original private keys. Hence, it would compromise the security of the network, as this could be done even on coins that were not necessarily stolen.

The process would see the network undergo a rigorous upgrade of its software. However, the community rejected it so fast, as they viewed it as an exception to “code is law” and immutability as dangerous even for a clear theft case.

Community reacts

The community, which represented the social consensus in which Bitcoin operates, was quick to criticize this move.

For instance, the CTO of Vypex, Eric Hall, said,

“Proposing to hard fork Bitcoin is like asking the ocean to move because you built your house on the beach the audacity met reality and reality didn’t even need a full day to respond.”

Another added,

“Proposing a hard fork to reallocate dormant BTC opens a dangerous precedent, once you rewrite history, Bitcoin’s immutability narrative starts to crack.”

The community reactions reinforced Bitcoin’s strength in social consensus for security by rejecting the rewriting of history.

What’s next as BTC answers the stress test question?

This quick invalidation of a potential compromise to the Bitcoin network’s security backed an earlier analysis. This analysis noted that the structure in Bitcoin prevented any single donor from altering the code, regardless of their wealth or notoriety.

Meanwhile, its price action stayed above the $65K level.

This was a decline on the day, with the capitalization at $1.33 trillion, five times more than that of second-placed Ethereum. The results showed that BTC remained as the leading world reserve asset in the crypto markets.

Final Summary

• Mt. Gox’s proposal that could compromise Bitcoin’s security dies within hours. 
• Bitcoin’s community proved strength in the social consensus mechanism for BTC’s security.