If you haven't heard in latest news already, bitcoin is forking...again. This will form the 3rd hardfork this year. To some this has become a pathway of "free money" and "lets ride the bitcoin lambo to the moon". Except this time it's different. It's about the future direction of bitcoin. Not about a new coin and 'dividend' so to say. I will cover some of the politics and the exchanges that support the fork in this post. The fork is expected to occur on the 16th of November 2017.
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The battleground is essentially the original bitcoin chain (which has been in existence for 9 years now) versus the 2X coin which looks to improve the transaction speeds and lower transaction fees. Sounds good? There is more to it.
The team supporting this fork are those part of the New York Agreement (we call them the banksters funded by guys who created the GFC) and generally are supported by the majority of miners with several organizations part of this agreement. In my opinion this is a very messy divide between developers and miners. Where developers want what is best for bitcoin and are against the fork as they believe we are following in Satoshi Nakomoto (founder of bitcoin - still unknown) vision.
Miners hold a significant amount of influence on the direction of the coin that succeeds as the hashrate (the computing power) to solve complex problems and verify transactions is what powers the blockchain. Miners will always mine what is more profitable. If majority of the hashrate ends up with 2X that will be the more mined coin and transactions will be faster and cheaper. We may see the transition from what we call the 'legacy' bitcoin to the '2X' coin.
Miners are selfish and only care about making money - this is fair as they are simply a business that are focused on profitability. Hence if they are backed by banksters there is some control and we start to move away from decentralisation. I hate that bitcoin is forking and am not afraid to be termed a 'maximalist'.
I am biased in my view here as my thoughts are who ever controls the hashrate controls bitcoin. Similar to lord of the rings "One ring to rule them all" except replace it with "majority hashrate to rule bitcoin". My thoughts are Bitcoin will see a slight jump in price in the lead up to the fork. However afterwards it is uncertain times and we might even see a reversal in price or ascend higher as has been with previous forks. No-one truly knows.
WHAT EXCHANGES SUPPORT THE FORK?
- Bitfinex (official statement)
- Binance (official statement)
- Coinbase (official statement)
- HitBTC (official statement)
- Huobi.pro (offiical statement)
- OKCoin (official statement)
- OkEx (official statement)
- ViABTC (official statement)
(Link: https://99bitcoins.com/who-supports-segwit2x-wallets-exchanges-the-complete-list/)
AUSTRALIAN EXCHANGES SUPPORTING THE FORK
- Coinspot (no official statement but they have supported all the other forks and one can assume they will/should support this one)
- BTC Markets (https://btcmarkets.wordpress.com/2017/11/06/support-for-segwit2x-b2x)
- Independent Reserve (https://www.independentreserve.com/News/Media/Segwit2x_Hard_Fork)
WHAT TO DO PRE/POST SPLIT?
Wait out 2 days or more before and after the fork until the dust settles or news is available about which coin succeeds. Avoid moving coins in this period as you open yourself up to network issues. The lack of replay protection for the 2X coin is concerning. This is because any transaction on one chain can be replayed on the other and you will end up with a double spending problem.
Stay aware guys and feel free to ask questions or leave me comments so I know what you would like me to cover next. Thanks for reading.
Cryptoshaf
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DISCLAIMER: Everything stated here are my opinions. Always invest with money you can afford to lose and do your own research - these are VERY risky investments. A lot of groups and people will misguide you so be sure you know what you are doing. Always remember all these investments can erode significantly in value as these are VERY volatile markets.