Samourai classifying Bitcoin SegWit2x hard fork as attack on the network

Samourai Wallet, known for its secure, private and anonymous bitcoin wallet application announced today that during the SegWit2x hard fork next month it will be following the longest blockchain that is valid according to its Bitcoin Core 0.15 nodes. The team said they are proud to support the open source process that has been fostered by the Bitcoin Core developers saying they have consistently released stable well-considered updates in a mission-critical environment.

Mid-month November 2017, the Bitcoin network will experience what is referred to as a hard fork. After block 494,784 the original Bitcoin blockchain (BTC) will split and a new blockchain will be created – SegWit2x (S2X). The S2X hard fork “is not only a contentious and unneeded change to the current rules of Bitcoin but also an attempt to seize control of the open source development of Bitcoin by a small group of privileged interests.”

Fork detection and replay protection

The S2X hard fork is particularly troubling for Samourai and others, as the development team has NOT added an important safeguard known as ‘replay protection’ to their software. Without replay protection any transaction sent on either of the chains may also be sent on the other chain (‘replayed’), leading to the high potential of users losing funds. Because of the willful insistence by the developer(s) to not add replay protection, Samourai Wallet is classifying this hard fork as an attack on the network.

After block 494,784 if there has been a hard fork due to S2X, an alert will be prominently displayed to users on the main screen of the Samourai Wallet. The alert will prompt the user to apply replay protection to their BTC. The Samourai team said they are still finishing out the method of replay protection it will offer and will provide more information as the SegWit2x event gets closer.

Accessing S2X tokens

After block 494,784 any Unspent Transaction Output (UTXO) that contains a BTC balance will also contain an identical balance of S2X. Samourai Wallet users will not be able to access or interact with S2X natively in the wallet. Users wishing to manage their S2X will need to find a trustworthy S2X wallet.

Once it becomes safe and reliable to transact, Samourai Wallet will detect any balance of S2X and present an option to automatically convert the entire S2X balance to BTC. The S2X will be sold at market price and BTC will appear directly in Samourai Wallet.