Does BIP148 (UASF) offer any replay attack protection?

2

Is there any protection against replay attacks in BIP148?

Despite the popular name (UASF), it's effectively a hard fork (in the sense users with old nodes will be on a different chain), is there any protection against taking the transaction from the longer chain and putting it on "UASFCoin" chain, or vice versa?

Something like Ethereum with EIP155 / chain ID.

Karel Bílek

Posted 2017-06-15T19:01:23.533

Reputation: 2 197

1

related: What is a soft fork?

Murch 2017-06-16T06:20:32.307

1As is stated there - "if less than 51% of the hashing power switches to the new version, it behaves like a hardfork" - which can very well happen in UASFKarel Bílek 2017-06-16T15:02:48.807

2What I meant there when I wrote this two years ago was: A soft fork with minority hash support will lead to a persistent chain split as a hard fork would. It is still distinctly different from a hard fork as the software is forwards compatible, and this split could still self-mend if more hashrate converges on the soft fork chain.Murch 2017-06-16T15:16:47.880

1Which applies to BIP148 too though. If it has minoritity - which it can, since it has a flag day and not a miner requirement. So it's something in between.Karel Bílek 2017-06-16T15:53:47.020

It's forwards compatible and therefore a soft fork.Murch 2017-06-16T15:55:19.677

It's not fully forwards compatible - if the segwit chain has less hashpower, the old nodes will be on a different chain, as you yourself noted in the answer :)Karel Bílek 2017-06-16T16:16:02.937

Answers

3

No. BIP 148 is a soft fork as the BIP 148 chain is valid to all non-BIP148 nodes and can wipe out the non-BIP 148 chain if it were to be longer than it. Because it is a soft fork, there cannot be any replay protection otherwise it would become a hard fork.

Andrew Chow

Posted 2017-06-15T19:01:23.533

Reputation: 40 910

1Hm. But it has a big chance of being shorter than the other chain (that's because it's "user activated" and not "miner activated"), so replay attacks are still possible, if both chains keep being mined and used. But it's true that replay attack protection is impossible in this case.Karel Bílek 2017-06-15T19:07:19.783