[fearface]

No, weird that you’re comment is so high up, but shows how little crypto knowledge is around in HN. A Bitcoin is a Bitcoin, but it consists of smaller units called Satoshis. Like Dollar and Cents. Since the beginning of Bitcoin. A fork is a copy of the underlying source code of Bitcoin, which in itself has no value at all. You would also need to find people who run nodes for your fork and start convincing exchanges that your fork should be supported too…so no, this is not splitting Bitcoin

[wesapien]

I thought it was the reverse. Satoshi is the unit at the code level and Bitcoin is just a representation for UX reasons.

[zubairq]

Yes this is accurate, satoshi is the unit and Bitcoin is more of a UX thing

[lottin]

If you fork the bitcoin blockchain you have now two ledgers, each one telling you that a certain number of bitcoins really exist. Who is to say that one is right and the other is wrong? In this scenario, it's debatable how many bitcoins are in existence.

[sowbug]

You might want to read the Bitcoin whitepaper. There is zero ambiguity in the situation you describe. That is the essence of the proof-of-work (or proof-of-stake, take your pick) solution to the Byzantine generals problem.

[lottin]

The ambiguity has to do with the fact that we don't know for sure which blockchain will prevail, because the protocol is unenforceable.