Statement regarding the upcoming S2X Hard Fork

Around mid November 2017 the Bitcoin network will experience what is referred to as a hard fork. After block 494,784 the original Bitcoin block chain (BTC) will split and a new block chain will be created (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.

Samourai Wallet is proud to support the Open Source process that has been fostered by the Bitcoin Core developers. They have consistently released stable well considered updates in a mission critical environment. As such, our entire infrastructure relies on Bitcoin Core 0.15 nodes, and Samourai Wallet will be following the longest block chain that is valid according to our Bitcoin Core 0.15 nodes.

Fork detection and replay protection

The S2X hard fork is particularly troubling as the development team have 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, we are 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 on the main screen of the wallet. The alert will prompt the user to apply replay protection to their BTC. We are ironing out the method of replay protection we will offer and will provide more information closer to the event.

Once replay protection has been opted into, the user may transact with confidence that their coins are sufficiently split on both chains and are protected from replay attacks.

Accessing S2X tokens

After block 494,784 any 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.

Thank You

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