What will happen to Bitcoin on the 1st of August?
To make a large and complex story short, what you need to know is that Bitcoin Core Team is promoting an upgrade called BIP-148. Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) 148 is a User Activated Soft Fork (UASF) that requires that miners signal for Segregated Witness (SegWit) before the 1st of August, after that date all BIP-148 nodes will start rejecting all blocks that do not support the protocol.
However, there is another large group of Bitcoin users and Miners that feel that Segwit alone is insufficient and it will not solve the scaling issues bitcoin is facing today (full blocks and high fees). This group, lead by entrepreneur Roger Ver and Bitcoin Miners like Jihan Wu (yes the guy of the F*ck your mother tweet ) , wants to implement SEGWITX2, which is basically segwit and an increase in block size from 1MB to 2MB.
All of this may sound kind of silly to you, it certainly does to me as I believe both options will solve the scaling issues we are facing today. However, this fight could end up in a “Chain Split” that will result in two different tokens. This happened to Ethereum last year and Ethereum Classic was born.
So what will happen to my Bitcoins?
Well this depends on what wallet provider you are using. If you are using an online provider that stores your private keys, then you need to wait and see which chain they will support or if they allow you to keep both Bitcoin tokens.
In the other hand, if you DO control your keys (Bitcoin Core, Electrum, etc) you will have the same balance on both chains and you will be able to keep them or trade one for the other once exchanges start accepting them both.
If you are uncertain about what will happen to bitcoin’s price you could always hedge your funds against a stable currency like SBD or BitUSD.
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That is why I wouldn't store any of your bitcoins in coinbase. Just in case the split does happen you will be S.O.L.
You're right about the consequences, but the conflict is more complicated. For weird historical reasons, neither side is promoting what it really wants. Almost all Bitcoin Core developers support SegWit, but the BIP148 UASF promoted by Luke Dashjr is too radical for about half of them. It's a break with their tradition of consensus and resistance to change. And the change in the proof of work he's considering to defend it against a response by the miners is even more controversial.
On the other side, Roger Ver and Jihan Wu would prefer to have a hard fork allowing big blocks without SegWit. But for the time being, they have accepted the compromise called the New York Agreement or SegWit2x organised by investor Barry Silbert, with Jeff Garzik as lead developer.
It looks like SegWit2x will be implemented just in time, but things could get weird if it's too late or one party defects - even a minor player like F2Pool.
Thank you for the added details!
So can u tell me If they will separate what will happen to altcoins like steemit? I've been hearing about this fork and this made me a little bit wiser but I'm really wondering what that will mean for altcoins.
Nothing will happen, its a different blockchain.
However, if Bitcoin price tanks it will for sure tank most of other cryptocurrencies too. This is why I recommend hedging against smartcoins that have a fixed value like SBD (1 dollar worth of steem) and BitUSD (one dollar worth of BTS).
Thanks for your answer. I know It's a different blockchain but the 2nd part u answered was my actual question. Thnx
Disclaimer: I am just a bot trying to be helpful.
haha EPIC Tweet!
Thanks for this, it always makes me laugh!.. never gets old LOL
Thanks for posting!
That's the lazy meme, this is the original XD upvoted!
hehe, I made a different one as this one kind of takes sides.
I know what will happen to bitcoin after the segwit... One will fly... The other will crawle :)
i can't believe people are fighting over a forking , lol
Nice post.. i don't have bitcoin in my portfolio but will keep an eye on things as they unfold
I think that the answer to all the questions is: HODL :)
