Satoshi Portal (bylls.com) policy on forks of Bitcoin and the definition of Bitcoin
AnnouncementLearning

6 mins

almost 7 years ago

Francis Pouliot
Francis Pouliot

CEO

Satoshi Portal (bylls.com) policy on forks of Bitcoin and the definition of Bitcoin

Satoshi Portal is a Canadian Bitcoin financial services and software development company. It operates two payments and exchange services, Bylls.com and Bitcoinoutlet.com, as well as private Bitcoin brokerage services. This policy applies to all services and software developed, operated, deployed or maintained by Satoshi Portal, including to third-party operators of Satoshi Portal software. Satoshi Portal does not operate any Bitcoin custodial services and is never at any time in control of users’ private keys.

Satoshi Portal considers to be “Bitcoin” whichever blockchain whose latest block is accepted as valid by our Bitcoin Core 0.14.2 node. This public node can be accessed at uasf-explorer.satoshiportal.com, IP address 158.69.102.114 and public electrum server at electrum.satoshiportal.com Port 50002.

Only Bitcoin transactions included in blocks of the longest proof-of-work chain accepted by Bitcoin Core 0.14.2 node software as valid will be considered as confirmed Bitcoin transactions.

Even if a blockchain obtains a longer SHA256 proof-of-work chain or accumulated difficulty, we will not consider it to be Bitcoin if its blocks are not considered valid by our Bitcoin Core 0.14.2 node. We will refer to such blockchains as “altcoins”.

We support the Bitcoin Core free and open-source software project hosted at bitcoincore.org and github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin. We consider Bitcoin Core the reference implementation of Bitcoin and the official repository of Bitcoin’s consensus rules, the direct descendant of the original Bitcoin project created by Satoshi Nakamoto. We will continue to do so until we feel it is no longer the best for the Bitcoin ecosystem, a day we are confident is not likely to come soon. Following this eventuality, this policy would be amended and our users would be notified with a 30-days notice.

Satoshi Portal is a Bitcoin-only company and does not conduct any transaction in any altcoin, including altcoins that are the result of a fork of the Bitcoin blockchain and which can be spent with Bitcoin private keys. This includes, but is not limited to, the coins commonly referred to as BCash, Segwit2X, BGold, Clams and Lumens.

We strongly oppose the “New York Agreement” and will under no circumstance ever recognize the Segwit2X blockchain (and BTC1 client) as Bitcoin, regardless of market response or hashing power. In the unlikely event that an overwhelming majority of the Bitcoin ecosystem migrates to the Segwit2X blockchain, Satoshi Portal will continue nevertheless to support the Bitcoin blockchain.

This policy may be subjected to change in the event of an overwhelming consensus causing the entire ecosystem to migrate to a new, backwards-incompatible blockchain fork of Bitcoin. As of November 7th 2017, Satoshi Portal is not aware of any proposal, process or roadmap to upgrade to a backwards-incompatible fork of Bitcoin which has consensus of the Bitcoin ecosystem. Our users would be notified a minimum of 30 days in advance of a new policy coming into effect.

Satoshi Portal will remain fully operational, regardless of scheduled blockchain fork “initial coin offerings” such as the November 16th “Segwit2X airdrop” occuring at block height 494784.

Users that wish to “split” their resulting “B2X” coins in order to sell them or hold them are encouraged be extremely cautious due to the absence of replay protection. Users must “split” their “B2X” from their bitcoins before transacting with Satoshi Portal if they wish to avoid replay attacks and keep the “B2X”. If they do not, because of the neglience of the B2X altcoin’s repository maintainers which did not include replay protection in their cryptocurrency design, they are highly likely to lose their “B2X” coins. It is the responsibility of users to protect themselves from replay attacks, and Satoshi Portal accepts no liability for replay attacks that its users may be subjected to.

Our software is completely incompatible with altcoins. Any altcoins sent to Satoshi Portal Bitcoin addresses will be lost and not be recoverable, including altcoins emerging as the result of fork of the Bitcoin blockchain. When purchasing bitcoins from Satoshi Portal, users are not entitled to altcoins whose transaction outputs can be spent with the same private keys as the ones used by Satoshi Portal when sending bitcoins to its users.

DETAILED TERMS FOR SATOSHI PORTAL AND BYLLS USERS REGARDING THE DEFINITION OF BITCOIN AND POLICY SURROUNDING FORKS OF THE BITCOIN BLOCKCHAIN

Defining “Bitcoin blockchain”

  1. Satoshi Portal defines the “Bitcoin blockchain” as the longest valid proof-of-work chain compatible with the consensus rules of the Bitcoin reference implementation found at https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin, otherwise known as “Bitcoin Core”. When referring to “Bitcoin” or “BTC”, Satoshi Portal will exclusively mean the “Bitcoin blockchain” as defined above.
  2. Until further notice, we will consider to be valid Bitcoin transactions exclusively transactions included in whichever blockchain whose latest block is accepted as valid by Satoshi Portal’s Bitcoin Core 0.14.2 node, publicly accessible at 158.69.102.114.
  3. Any “blockchain”, “cryptocurrency” or “altcoin” whose transactions are not considered valid by Satoshi Portal’s Bitcoin Core 0.14.2 node, and whose transactions are not included in blocks considered valid by Satoshi Portal’s Bitcoin Core 0.14.2 node, are considered by Satoshi Portal as not being Bitcoin. Satoshi Portal uses the term “altcoin” to refer to any non-Bitcoin Core 0.14.2 compatible cryptocurrency.
  4. Satoshi Portal uses its own block explorer, connected to its Bitcoin Core 0.14.2 node, which can be publicly accessed at uasf-explorer.satoshiportal.com. Satoshi Portal defines “confirmed Bitcoin transactions” exclusively as Bitcoin transactions appearing in a block considered valid by Satoshi Portal’s Bitcoin Core 0.14.2 node, as displayed on its associated block explorer.
  5. Even in the event of a non-Bitcoin Core 0.14.2 compatible blockchain using Bitcoin’s SHA256 proof-of-work algorithm achieving a longer SHA256 proof-of-work chain or accumulated difficulty which is longer than the Bitcoin blockchain, Satoshi Portal will continue to consider any non-Bitcoin Core 0.14.2 blockchain to be an “altcoin”, with Satoshi Portal’s public Bitcoin Core 0.14.2 node hosted at uasf-explorer.satoshiportal.com as the final mediator of whether or not a cryptocurrency transaction is a valid Bitcoin transaction.

Bitcoin and altcoin policy

  1. Satoshi Portal is a Bitcoin-only company. Until further notice, the only cryptocurrency accepted and transacted by Satoshi Portal with its clients is Bitcoin. We may use third-party services which perform conversion of currency on behalf of our users, such as Changelly, but in those cases Satoshi Portal is never accepting, or sending, payments in any other cryptocurrency than Bitcoin.
  2. When receiving Bitcoin transactions from users, Satoshi Portal will always and exclusively display Bitcoin addresses as receiving addresses.
  3. In the unfortunate event of a user accidentally sending a cryptocurrency other than Bitcoin to one of Satoshi Portal’s Bitcoin address, Satoshi Portal will not be able to recover those cryptocurrencies. As per our terms of service, Satoshi Portal accepts no liability for accidental user loss of funds.
  4. Because Satoshi Portal uses exclusively software that is compatible with Bitcoin Core 0.14.2, we will not be aware if any altcoins are accidentally sent to one of Satoshi Portal’s Bitcoin addresses.
  5. When purchasing bitcoins from Satoshi Portal, or otherwise when receiving bitcoins from Satoshi Portal, users are not entitled to any other altcoin whose transaction outputs can be spent with the same bitcoin private keys as the ones used by Satoshi Portal to transfer bitcoins to users.

Incompatible and compatible services

Some Bitcoin services have declared their intention support an altcoin called “Segwit2X” and may even assign it the label “Bitcoin” in their applications. These services, if using the altcoin called Segwit2X, will be incompatible will Satoshi Portal.

Satoshi Portal strongly discourages using these services. The official Bitcoin.org website has issued a warning against those services. Users should under not circumstance send bitcoins from, or receive bitcoins to, bitcoin wallets operated by these services when transaction with Satoshi Portal:

  • Bitpay
  • Xapo
  • Shapeshift
  • Coinbase
  • Blockchain.info
  • Jaxx
  • Bitcoin.com
  • Circle
  • BTCC
  • Bitgo

Users are encouraged to ensure the services they use are on this list: these services have publicly declared their intention to continue to support Bitcoin Core, just like Satoshi Portal.

Users are encouraged to connect their mobile wallets or desktop wallets to nodes that are known to be on the Bitcoin Core compatible blockchain. Users can use Satoshi Portal’s node at 158.69.102.114 but should be aware that this public node is associated to Satoshi Portal and can pose a privacy risk when used to broadcast transactions.

Users are encouraged to connect to Satoshi Portal’s electrum server electrum.satoshiportal.com port 50002 with their electrum or Airbitz wallets.

Francis Pouliot
CEO | Satoshi Portal

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