Monday, November 13, 2017

The Flippening, BTC to BCH The Last Mile

We had a glimpse of the flippening on 12 November when the ATH for BCH reached $2800. There were many people who truly believe that the flippening was actually going to eventuate. You could smell the fear. Well as they say " You ain't seen nothing yet". To explain it all we have to enlist the help of some chartist. Like me, most of you, are not day traders so will have very little understanding of Elliot wave theory, but would just like some inkling of how events are going to play out in the next few days.

1) What we know

a) BCH upgraded to a new EDA which just activated at block 504031. The wild gyrations in difficulty should be a thing of the past and miners will be more incentivise to stay mining on the BCH chain. This time, once the BTC chain come into the orbit, of the death grip, of the Chain Death Spiral, they will not be "rescued" by a BCH difficulty adjustment.

b) Many people wanting to sell BTC to purchase BCH have their transactions stuck in the huge mempool backlog now at 114 MB. God only knows how much sell pressure is locked up in the mempool. Just means that when the next wave hits it will be stronger than the last which was already a record at about 8 Billion dollars. It was a third of BCH market cap.

c) Segwit2X activation is scheduled at block 494784, another 543 blocks or in just under 4 days. Will Bitpico carry out their promise to start mining the Segwit2X chain? Thus far, out of the 14.5 Exa hashes of mining power available, only 10.5 EH is mining on the BCH and BTC chain combined. These 4 EH when they are deployed will be the final thrust sending BTC into the CDS and effectively evicting it from the Bitcoin mining ecosystem.

d) BTC still needs 1690 blocks for the next difficulty adjustment. BTC may never see another difficulty adjustment and they will most probably fork off the current Proof Of Work, as proposed by Cobra. This in an attempt to keep the Bitcoin name. However it is futile, as Bitcoin can refer to any particular blockchain. It is Generic.

Even the BTC handle can be change by exchanges and wallets. Bitcoin Cash was referred to as either BCH or BCC by exchanges and wallets but we all know they mean Bitcoin Cash. There is no register to claim a name. It is just naming by consensus. If BCH is the only coin left on the current POW, it will be referred to as Bitcoin. It contains the Genesis block and all the properties that we know, love and accept as Bitcoin.

e) BCH transaction volume is fast catching up with BTC. This means that a large chunk of institutional players have and are moving over to Bitcoin Cash. It is just impossible to use BTC for any kind of  "normal business" transaction. What the small blockers should honestly admit is that if a coin is not being used it has no value.


2) The Juicy Parts

If you have followed this blog you probably also believe that BCH will take over BTC as the real bitcoin. To have an idea on when and how this will play out we refer to some chartist predictions. I do not follow chartist or day trade but taken in totality with what we know we can derive trends and gain some idea of time horizons.



His last video correctly predicted the ATH of $2800 on 12 November. Then came the correction. His long term prediction based on Elliot wave theory, predicts a third wave peak at $3300 and a fifth wave peak at $4500.

Taken with what we know, in 4 days Segwit2X activates and Bitpico may start mining the chain. This may be the third wave pushing BCH price to $3300 close to 1.0 BTC (50% BTC market cap). This will panic hard core holders to defend BTC by pushing up BTC price and selling down BCH. That will be the expected Elliot wave correction leading into the 5 wave push to $4500 or about 1.25 BTC. If this happens it is game over for BTC.

I don't sadvice trading into any of these predictions. Basically holding on to your BCH is the safest and best policy. The above scenario may be all done and dusted within 2 weeks. I will not want to miss any part of this exciting phase of Bitcoin history "for all the tea in China". The last run was memorable, was it not?

           ______________________________________________

You can read about the process on Segwit2X hard fork effect on the flippening here.

Segwit2X Still Go - Complete Wealth Transfer

Wealth Transfer In Progress

You can read about the Chain Death Spiral Here

Chain Death Spiral

Elliot Wave. - In my very limited understanding, they are basically fractals pattern and are all nested within each other. So if you look deeper into smaller time frame on the charts you see the same 5 wave pattern. On the long time scale the third wave is at $3300 and 5th wave at $4500. From our knowledge of what is happening we narrow the time frame to within the next 2 weeks for the fifth wave to play out. Let us see if it is as we expect.

Sunday, November 12, 2017

The Flippening. BTC to BCH Wealth Transfer In Progress

What a wild day we got on 12/11/2017. Bitcoin Cash went as high as .52 BTC and dropped back down to .19 BTC. At the same time BTC dropped below $5500 and recovered to above $6000. What happened ? This movement caught me by surprise. Thought that it would be another 4 days before the action started. In light of this development I think I need to revise my analysis.

1) Price of Bitcoin is about $7800 and it is Total of BTC + BCH

Currently on Coinmarket Cap.     BTC = 6123   BCH = 1731   Total = 7854

What seems to be happening is that value is flowing to BCH.

Take Note :  BTC and BCH share the same Proof Of Work where miners can move from one chain to the other following the most profitable coin. BTC does not have the Emergency Difficulty Adjustment (EDA) coded in so is vulnerable to Chain Death Spiral. If it "dies on the vine" BTC goes to zero.

Large holders are preparing, and today's episode will scare the shits out of them, if they have not hedge their positions. The situation has stabilised but probably only with massive and costly support. Look upon this as the market being propped up while whales shift their portfolios. In the meantime the propaganda machine will be on full blast to restore confidence, and the cyber army will prepare DDOS attacks on exchanges to slow access and trades. They can slow the process but cannot change the outcome. Two coins cannot co-exist on one Proof Of Work chain if one does not have EDA. Core is not likely to encode EDA into BTC with a hard fork anytime soon.

Treat this calm as the passing of the eye of a cyclone. Make your move to protect your financial position. If all your holdings is in BTC you need to hedge by holding some BCH. At this point you still have a 4 to 1 advantage. At the least hold 1: 1 so that you will be wealth neutral whatever happens. I notice that all the Core supporters on Youtube channels are starting to tone their rhetoric and are themselves advising their listeners to hedge their positions.

With the mempool so clog up and block time in the hours you may not be able to move your BTC to an exchange to sell even after paying high priority fees. Take this opportunity to move some BTC to exchanges ahead of time. Do not use low fees options or your transactions will get stuck. Use peer to peer systems and even services like Shapeshift. Coinami and Jaxx wallets have shapeshift support.


2) The Mining Action

a) There is more hash power mining on BCH than on BTC right now.
b) BCH difficulty will retarget in the next day or 2 at the most.
c) BCH hard forks to adjust the EDA so as not to have wild swings in difficulty tomorrow.

After the difficulty adjustment, BCH will still be more profitable to mine. So the majority of hash power will keep mining BCH. The next difficulty adjustment for BCH will smooth out the wild hash rate swings to lock in the miners.

BTC just had their difficulty adjusted and it will need another 1880 blocks for the next difficulty adjustment. With such long block times, BTC may never see another difficulty adjustment, before they are forced to hard fork off the network to another Proof Of Work algorithmn.

Segwit2X is still on. Complete wealth transfer from BTC to BCH
Chain Death Spiral


3) What I think happened
The interesting thing about this whole episode is that the 30% of hashing power, about 3 Exa Hashes, did not come into play. They were still held offline. They were not even mining on the BCH chain. This means that what happened was more of a Fear Of Missing Out ( FOMO ) event.

Many investors and crypto holders are waking up to Bitcoin Cash, and started buying in. Many were moving out of bitcoin and alt coins into Bitcoin Cash which is why the total value of BTC and BCH was almost unchanged throughout the episode. Ultimately this somehow turned into the banking equivalent of a bank run, but unlike banks and stock markets there are no trip mechanism in crypto, and so a feedback loop kicked in and the whole process went berserk.

What ended the panic was the Korean exchange responsible for about 40% of trading volume going offline. This allowed bitcoin support levels to kick in pushing bitcoin price above $6000. At the same time profit taking on BCH drop the price to 0.20 but was still above the price of 0.15 where it started. Seems like the huge demand for BCH came from the Korean exchanges causing this run-up, same as the last one in August. One thing for sure, the Chinese have not gone away. They may be routing their trades through the Korean exchanges as well. Brace for more to come....

This event will not be a one off. We may see two more of these run-ups up to Segwit2X activation. BCH will settle higher and BTC will settle Lower after each episode. When this run-up happened most were caught unprepared and were unable to move their BTC to exchanges. The next episode will see even higher volumes transacted with less gyrations. The DDOS army will be on standby.

4) Too little too late
Do not bother listening to any explanation, excuses, blame or whatever being brandied about, from any side. Bitcoin does not care. What it comes down to is that 2 coins are competing for the same miners to secure their network. BTC does not have the protection of EDA. It is like playing a game of ice hockey where one team is not wearing helmets, because they don't want to stop the game to put their helmets on. It is a foregone conclusion that the longer the game goes on, the team without helmets will be annihilated.


Saturday, November 11, 2017

Segwit2X Is Still Go - Complete Wealth Transfer From Legacy Bitcoin To Bitcoin Cash In Progress

October 26 2017  Email from Jeff Garzik Segwit2X is full steam ahead.
November 8 2017 Segwit2X Cancelled announcement by 6 industry leaders.

Since Segwit activation on 23 August, the Segwit2X team had endured 2 months of relentless bashing from the small blockers, all the while remaining mostly silent. So what happened between October 26 and November 8? It can't be for the lack of consensus which was the reason given. They already knew there was never going to be consensus. Something unexpected happened, causing them to push the "kill" switch. What was it ?

This Happened



                               BTC        BCH        TOT

 26 Oct                   12.16        1.33        13.49
27 Oct                     9.11         3.97        13.08
28 Oct                     7.37         4.29        11.66
29 Oct                     8.51        0.60          9.11
30 Oct                   10.46       0.38         10.84
31 Oct                    11.07        0.43         11.50
01   Nov                  9.72        0.45         10.17
02 Nov                   11.49       0.46         11.95
03 Nov                    9.76        1.99         11.75
04 Nov                    8.52        1.68        10.20
05 Nov                   10.51        1.02        11.53
06 Nov                  10.52        1.25         11.77 
07 Nov                   9.86         1.24         11.10
08 Nov                  11.16         1.22         11.38 

From October 27 the hashrate for Bitcoin dropped by over 30%.

In my previous post I postulated that the Segwit2X hard fork is a billion dollar windfall opportunity for miners. It is inconceivable that miners can let this opportunity go by, without exploiting it.

My guess is that a consortium had indeed hatch a plan to take advantage of this opportunity. I suspect that they approached Jihan Wu and he turned them down. Bitmain is a Billion dollar international business with venture capital investments and cannot be seen to be tainted by any fallout from this "Billion Dollar Hiest". If you look at the names of the other signatories, aside from Jeff Garzik, all are well known names in the Bitcoin space, operating front end customer based businesses. These people are distancing their businesses and themselves from the fallout, when "the shit hits the fan". Jeff Garzick provided credibility as he is lead developer.

Sure enough within 12 hours this response was posted. This message by Bitpico

"We are carrying out the fork regardless as everything is set in motion. Backing down the difficulty right now is a strategy. Wonder why 30% network hash-rate disappeared? It’s ours; the miners that will continue what is set in motion... A handful of humans cannot stop what they have no control over..."

This message was dismissed as FUD and trolling. I disagree. I think they are deadly serious. There is too much money at stake. Since then they have also put up a website bitcoin2x.org.

Can They Execute ?
1) A Consortium Of Miners.
Examine the miners pie chart. The pool ratio for the 4 days and 24 hours are fairly similar. We don't see a drop out of any single pool or group of miners. Suggest a consortium working together. From the table above, they do seem to control 30% of the hash power as they claim.

2) The Play
I see this play out in two parts. First the flippening ( Pivot to Bitcoin Cash ) and secondly the Segwit futures. For the flippening they start by taking huge positions in Bitcoin Cash at around .05BTC.

Possible mining share breakdown on the separate chains.

Bitcoin Cash  : Bitcoin.com, Viabtc, Unknown : 30%
Segwit2X       : Consortium, Unknown : 40%
Segwit1X       : Antpool, Bitfury : 30%

Come 16 November both Segwit chains will be slow. We may get 1 hour blocks on the Segwit2X chain, and even longer on the Segwit1X chain. Bitcoin Cash will have very fast block times and the number of transactions processed on this chain will also escalate. As the price of Bitcoin Cash increase miners will move from Segwit1X to Bitcoin Cash and this chain (Segwit1X) will be the first to suffer the Chain Death Spiral. In the meantime, the "Rouge" miners will continue mining the Segwit2X chain at a loss.

Will the exchanges recognise Segwit2X as Bitcoin if it has the greater accumulated hashing as announced before the fork was cancelled? I doubt it. They will more likely view it as an attack on Bitcoin and refuse listing them. If other exchanges like Hitbtc start listing their coins then the game changes again, and that will be another complication.

How long would they continue mining at a loss? My estimate is that with 30% of hashpower it will cost them approximately 1 million dollars a day. They will make many times that with the gains in the price of BCH. I think they can continue this stand-off for as long as is needed.

When the "Rouge" miners are sure that Segwit1X is no longer viable, or if Segwit2X hard fork off the network, they will abandon the Segwit2X chain as well and move over to Bitcoin Cash. By then even Antpool cannot save the day. Both the Segwit chains will be "dead". Only 1 chain will be left - Bitcoin Cash ---> Bitcoin.

Bitcoin Cash Is The Real Bitcoin

Will the real Bitcoin please stand up

Bitcoin. Its a matter of trust.

The futures play was easy. Intially it must be to purchase BT2 tokens and make them BTC for a huge profit, then proceed to the flippening. The Segwit2X cancellation announcement was probably unexpected. It stopped this play by tanking the futures, however they were able to pick up tens of thousands of Segwit2X tokens for pennies, and are now selling to high risk taking investors betting that Segwit2X will become the new BTC.

No Segwit2X free dividend

3) Bitcoin has no masters and takes no prisoners
The announcement signed by just 6 people cancelling the hard fork, is in itself ludicrous. This is not how Bitcoin works and they know it. Did they really expect the miners to just abide by their proclamation, leave their money on the table and walk away from billions of dollars? Get real please. Legacy Bitcoin's seeds of destruction was sown when "self imposed managers" surreptitiously forced the back door activation of Segwit. The consequences and the follow on effects after Segwit2X activates, just dawned on them, and they find themselves "staring into the abyss".

People holding legacy bitcoin are going to lose their money, investment and nest egg, through no fault of their own. I can't even begin to think on how this fallout will devastate peoples lives. This will be a total wealth transfer from BTC to Bitcoin Cash. The lesson is simple. Leave Bitcoin alone. Bitcoin has no masters and takes no prisoners.

4) Disruption
If disruption to their services is what they hope to avoid by cancelling Segwit2X, I am afraid disruption is what they will get. Bitcoin is immutable code. Not managed protocol. Only Bitcoin Cash will remain on the current most secure Proof Of Work. There will be no more "opportunistic and contentious forks" from the Bitcoin blockchain in the future, after this episode plays out.

Bitcoin Cash does not need anybody to confer upon it the name Bitcoin. It just is. It always was. Should Bitcoin Cash worry about "Rouge" miners? I think not. We don't fear "Rouge" miners. Only  "Rouge" developers.

Core will have to change Segwit1X POW to survive and proclaim their chain to be the real Bitcoin. But it wont work. A chain with a different proof of work is not Bitcoin. They can tinker with Segwit on their chain as much as they like but without the economic incentives to follow, they will soon lose interest.

5) Final Analysis
a) I feel sorry for people who bought bitcoin after 1 August 2017. Theirs will be a huge loss. Buying in at up to $7500 and seeing it go to zero. Some of these people climb onto the bandwagon trusting bitcoin to be a store of value. To some this will be their life savings and they will see it disappear. I cannot express my sadness for these people. I covered this in my posts

BTC Is Dead. Long Live BTC.

BTC Is Dead. Long Live BTC, Updated and Explained ELI5

b) People who own BTC before August 1 got their allocation of Bitcoin Cash. The sad part is that most were persuaded by the dominant crypto media and forums to sell their Bitcoin Cash and buy more BTC. If they had taken that advice, they will end up penniless. Lesson for the media is, inform and educate, not indoctrinate. Will they learn? NO. At least they will know the pain of those they hurt if they took their own advice.

c) For fund managers who have divested their holdings of Bitcoin Cash, there will be much explanations ahead. Segwit1X without EDA protection always had a non zero existential threat of going to zero, a victim of the Chain Death Spiral. Not great to wake up one morning only to see a 100 million dollars bitcoin fund go to zero.

d) Coinbase would actually come out smelling like roses because they would have protected their customers from heir own folly, by witholding their BCH until January 2018.

5) Fear Uncertainity and Doubt?
In my earlier posts I placed a caveat hoping that I was wrong because the implications of people losing money and their savings through no fault of their own is too horrendous to comprehend. I am now convinced that I was not wrong. I am afraid. Very afraid.

Will this kill Bitcoin. Of course not, but hopefully we can put in place some programs to minimise the negative human cost of this momentous wealth transfer and its' aftermath. There will be many who will not believe in this coming apocalypse. All I can do is warn and inform. Must add that my posts have been censored from r/bitcoin.

6) Can It Be Averted?
Sadly no. In the long term, only one coin can remain on the current Bitcoin Proof Of Work, unless both coins have EDA. In the short term, that is in 4 days, some miners will start mining Segwit2X, thus starting this whole process of destruction and renewal of the Bitcoin landscape. I had previously expected it to happen in two stages. First the demise of Segwit1X and an extended tussle between Segwit2X and Bitcoin Cash over several months. It is now clear that the time frame for both these events has been compressed and will play out next week. When the dust settles, Bitcoin Cash will be the only coin left standing and will go on to achieve the predicted valuations of 1 million dollars a coin. I suppose we have to break eggs to make omelette.

We will know in 4 days nevertheless. When in doubt "Follow The Money". 



Footnote: Legacy Bitcoin mempool exceeded 100K. The chain is unusable for the majority of users. This is only 4 days away from the activation of Segwit2X. It is going to get worse. Much worse. Was not going to post until after the fork but the cancellation of Segwit2X changed that.

Sunday, November 5, 2017

Segwit2X - A Billion Dollar Windfall Event And Opportunity Bitcoin Miners Control

This is my final post before the coming Segwit hard fork. Note that I do not have access to miners, developers or whales. These observations are my own and they are deduced from the available public information accessible to everyone. Do not take this as investment advise. If it helps you  .... You're Welcome.

A Once In A Lifetime Golden Opportunity For Bitcoin Miners

Segwit2X futures are trading at 0.15 BTC. If you are a miner supporting Segwit2X, can you pass up on this opportunity to make a quick, clean, and legal, profit of 5X on your investment, in a situation where the outcome of the event is in your (industry) control?

If it all works out for the miners, and they reap this huge windfall, you cannot criticise or sue them for being deceitful or for insider trading because they have actually signed an agreement publicly stating that it was exactly what they are going to do. They can't be blamed if you did not believe them.

As a miner they are in business to make money. We even assumed that this profit motive drives them to mine the most profitable coin. Mining margins after costs are at best small, and it may take years to recover their investments. Why would they not take advantage of this golden opportunity? A million dollars "invested" will nett them at least 5 million, after BT2 is declared to be the new Bitcoin.

Major companies like Blockchain.info, Bitpay, Xapo and Coinbase have publicly stated that they will recognise the chain with the most accumulated hash power (hashrate x blocks) as BTC. This calculation will not take into account the price of BT1 or BT2. This means that if a majority of them (miners) are supporting Segwit2X then Segwit2X will become BTC. Note that it needs just a majority and not 80 or 90%.

Opaque messages from exchanges recognising Segwit1X as BTC. Eg. HitBtc

1) "On the day Segwit is activated B2X withdrawal and deposits enabled". All it means is that they will trade B2X, and if B2X become BTC so be it, if not they will trade it as a token. It means nothing really. Just stating the obvious.

2) "We may temporarily suspend BTC deposits and withdrawal ...... once we are sure it is safe, we will restore full functionality"

It is actually the same policy as Coinbase. They did not insist that if B2X has more accumulated hashrate, they will still treat B1X as BTC, because they can't. No customer will accept that trade. So it is clear that even if exchanges say that they prefer Segwit1X to be BTC they still have to wait till the situation resolves. It is just a PR stunt or it may be construed to confuse as they may also be keen to jump in on this "golden opportunity".

Trading volumes were light in the begining but now with 10 days to go, the 24 hour volume have reached 5700 and increasing. It is conceivable that we could have 100,000 or more contracts outstanding at the fork. This could easily become the record single Billion dollar wealth transfer event in the history of Bitcoin.

So why would anybody take the opposing view if they stand to lose that much money?

Perhaps they are committed (Blockstream) and have to protect their position. Perhaps they are putting up their money to protect their principles (misguided), or maybe they just can't see the wood for the trees. The truth is - They are not in control. The miners are. We have to at least expect that human beings will act in their own self interest.

Group 1 losers : Bitcoiners, and new bitcoin converts who believe that they will be getting Segwit2X coins as dividends which they can quickly sell for a profit. (ALA Bitcoin Cash). See my last post on No Segwit2X Dividends. No dividends but they will still have their BTC.

Group 2 losers : Investors who purchase Segwit1X futures thinking that they are getting BTC at a discount. 100% loss if Segwit2X wins as the Segwit1X chain is unlikely to survive.

Group 3 losers : Those who believe that miners will mine the most profitable coin and so factor in the future price of BT1 and BT2, but as stated above, price is not a factor in calculating accumulated difficulty. If you really think about it, the most profitable option for miners is the windfall scenario.

If Miners End Up Supporting Segwit1X

In the unlikely event that miners end up supporting Segwit1X, they will have to answer to why they reneged on their word and agreement. There could be class action legal suits (against NYA signatories) flying about from the people who lost money trusting them. Why would they sully their reputation and risk the wrath of these investors. Sticking to their word and agreement is the most profitable and safest course of action.

The Battle For Bitcoin Cash To Become Bitcoin Is Not over.

Bitcoin Cash is not an Alt Coin. It is still in the running together with Segwit1X and Segwit2X to be the real Bitcoin. They all have the genesis block and compete for the same hash power. The tussle between Bitcoin Cash and Segwit since the last fork is still continuing. It has now morph into a tussle between Bitcoin Cash, Segwit1X and Segwit2X. In this coming fork Bitcoin Cash is not in the running for the title of BTC because it is very far behind both Segwit coins in terms of accumulated hash power. What can happen to Segwit1X if it becomes the minority chain is covered in my previous post. However, in the long run only one coin can survive on the Bitcoin proof of work. This has implications if you are a fund manager.

Wednesday, November 1, 2017

Segwit2X Equals Free Dividends ... Come On ... Tell The Truth ... PLEASE!!

In my last article I was curious as to why the BT2 futures price is at 0.15 BTC while miners support is at 90%. Totally weird. This is as though - with the Reserve Bank announcing a 1%  interest rate increase, the banks react by dropping mortgage interest 2.5%. Bonkers!

The article here : Battle Royale Segwit2X And Segwir1X

I realise now that the reason is because investors are thinking that after the fork they will be getting Segwit2X fork coins as dividends, which they can immediately dump just as they did after the Bitcoin Cash fork. This may also to some extent explain why bitcoin price is increasing now just before the fork.

Wow! Stop! Newbies Beware! Stop swallowing this nonsense! It is not going to happen this way. Segwit2X is not the same as Bitcoin Cash. All major exchanges have announced that they will treat the chain with the most work done as BTC ( Bitpay  Coinbase  Blockchain ). Take this announcement seriously. It means that everything freezes after the fork and the large bitcoin companies ( users by proxy effectively) will decide which chain is BTC and that is by observing which chain has the Most Work Done. It is a race and the winner gets the Bitcoin name. Price does not come into the calculation. Only mining hashrate. Because of this decision,

Segwit2X will be the chain with the most work done after the fork.
It will be given the Bitcoin name.

How it will play

24 hours before the fork all BTC deposits and withdrawals will cease.  They will  now wait to see which chain will have the most work done basically the most hashing power.

Segwit2X will have 90% hashing power. The first block will be mined in about 11 minutes then the next in another 11 minutes. At the end of 2 hours there will be at least 10 Segwit2X blocks found. If Segwit 1X is lucky it will find 1 block after 2 hours. If we stop here we can already conclude that the Segwit2X chain has the most work done and so will be named BTC.

If we carry on longer, miners on Segwit1X chain will find that they are continually lagging behind Segwit2X in total work done, and at some point will start to switch over. When this happens the Segwit1X chain eventually dies ( Chain Death Spiral ) and will be abandoned. All blocks found on the Segwit1X chain will be worthless. The longer this carries on the more miners on this chain stands to lose.

Miners Miners Miners (Update)

Do not take your eyes off the miners. They control the play. You can be sure they are talking to each other. Look at it through their lenses and it will appear less hazy. So if you are a miner and you see this 6X play on Segwit2X what will you be doing?

Firstly you will want to keep the price down while you buy in. What an opportunity. If they make the play for 6X gain. They can say " it's what we said we would do " and no one can pull them up for insider trading. Then there is the longer game. What is the long game. I will have one more post before the fork next week to square up all these events and happenings since the last Bitcoin Cash Fork.

It is strange that there is quite a premium on the asian exchanges for Segwit2X. Do they know something?

No. Miners will mine the most profitable coin and they will move back to BTC (Segwit1X).

Get this. Do not fall into the argument that Segwit1X is BTC before the fork and Segwit2X is a new coin after the fork and so is an Alt coin. Both are bitcoin at the point of the fork. If you send btc from a wallet after the fork it is a valid transaction on both chains. The wallet does not care which chain wins. SPV wallets will follow the longest chain.

At the exchanges, and users like Coinbase, Bitpay effectively suspend trading. They wait to see which chain becomes the longest chain. This now depends on which chain has the greater mining power. They will not wait forever and at some point after they see that hashrate have stabilised, they will start trading the longest chain as Bitcoin. When this decision is made by consensus, the other coin is effectively dead. Price does not come into the equation only hashrate matters. 

No. The nodes will reject Segwit2X and miners will go back to Segwit1X

Nodes do not matter is this fight and is another fallacy thrown in to confuse. If this was true Bitcoin Cash could not have happen. It did. So this argument is false. And don't fall for the argument that Bitcoin Cash uses a different Proof Of Work too. It uses the same. Nodes do not matter because the system will propagate even with 2 nodes.

No. The users will rebel they will boycott all the "enemy services" and those services will pay a heavy price.

After the fork and if Segwit2X becomes BTC, the decision is made. Election is over. We could argue forever and never agree. So those that do not agree - can exit. The rest will carry on. No point spitting in the wind! Nothing will come off it. The community will move on. There will be more controversy and fights for "the soul of Bitcoin" going forward. For now this argument is over. The next fight will be between Segwit and No Segwit.

Effect of Bitcoin Cash hashrate

The impact of Bitcoin Cash will probably not be great because of a change to their Emergency Difficulty Adjuster (EDA) through a hard forked on 13 November. Bitcoin Cash hashrate would reduce in volatility and probably fluctuate around 1 Peta Hash.

51% attack and Wipeout

If Segwit1X gets only 10% or less in hashing power it can also be 51% attacked. However this is not likely or necessary as such an attack by miners will not look good on them.

Bitcoin Core is Legacy bitcoin and it will never die, may get smaller but never die.

Very dangerous unmovable position to take. Not healthy if you are betting your own money on it. Sometimes an immovable object meets an irresistible force. Only tenable if you are betting with someone else money. What if it does die? and it can without mining support.

What happens to the Core Chain

1) They can change the Proof of Work algorithm and branch out like Bitcoin Gold, but they won't be Bitcoin. This is not easy to do and will take some time to accomplish. Then there is all the infrastructure to build around it like wallets, exchanges, nodes etc. This is not easy as can be seen from the experience of Bitcoin Cash. Add in the need to finance the development and it is really nearly impossible.

Note :- Bitcoin Gold self mined 100,000 coins presumably for development. The price of futures started at $400 and is now about $150. These are futures. There are no coins yet. The longer it takes to release coins the less it will be worth. To me, Bitcoin Gold looks more like a get rich quick scheme preying on the uninformed, misinformed and the greedy.

2) They can hard fork to 2MB and remain as a competing client, and keep developing Segwit.

3) They can hard fork incorporating EDA, but it is rather too late to implement now.

Whatever happens there will be no Segwit2X dividend coins to dump.

The aftermath

If you own BTC in your wallet they will just continue to be BTC. Nothing changes. SPV wallets will just recognise the longest chain.

What if Segwit2X does not get 90% of hashing? Well, it just need to get the Majority. Add to this the probability that miners on Bitcoin Cash will move to help Segwit2X and you quickly see that, because the criteria is total work done, Segwit2X will win and become BTC.

Back to Segwit2X futures

So what happened with Segwit futures. For every BT2 coin sold someone must split 1 BTC into 1 BT1 and 1 BT2 coin. These are just numbers on Bitfinex ledger. These coins do not exist. So if someone holds 100 BT2 another person must hold 100 BT1 on Bitfinex ledger. If BT1 chain dies as the above scenario would suggest, then those holding BT1 coins will be valued at zero and BT2 coins will become BTC.

There will not be any BT1 coins to issue unless Segwit1X successfully hard fork which as explained above is a tall order. Even if Core hard fork to 2MB it is still a Segwit2X chain. If you have been deceived by the No2X campaign, than you will be very angry indeed. If you bought BT1 coin at 0.85 BTC thinking it is a 15% discount. You will lose 100% of your investment.

It is very important that you do your research. Do not listen to one side only. Be wary when people vent and rage loudly, aggressively, uses censorship and threats to make their point. Also be careful of those who do not fully know what they are talking about. Don't just accept their point of view. Examine their reasoning. If non is forthcoming - RUN.

Am I right?

I could be wrong! But it comes down to this. Do you think Segwit2X will start with more hashing or Segwit1X? I have described the above scenario if Segwit2X gets the majority hashing power come fork day.

If you still believe that Segwit1X will get the majority hash power then take the opposite view. However do consider :
1) There are 90% miners signalling for Segwit2X already. Are they lying? Bitcoin.com
2) There will be hidden hash power that will come up on fork day. These will more likely be for Segwit2X as their supporters have more money.
3) Nodes play no part in this fight. Don't be fooled by this argument.
4) If you are wrong you lose 100% of your investment.
6) Bitcoin Cash miners are Segwit2X supporters. They can switch their hash power.
7) Reputable People in business honor their agreements. Re NYA.

Can't emphasise this enough. DO YOUR RESEARCH. If you want to gamble on the futures, DO YOUR RESEARCH. I repeat again. THERE WON'T BE ANY SEGWIT2X COINS TO DUMP. One or the other will go to ZERO. If in doubt Do Nothing. Your bitcoins are safe.

The argument stops. We move on.

Regardless which side you are on in this argument the issue will be resolved. ( Good Video )The fork will happen. One coin will emerge. If you gamble on an outcome and you are wrong you will lose 100% of your bet. Unless you are willing to lose all just hold. Your BTC before the fork will still be BTC after the fork. There will be no Dividend Segwit2X coin that you can dump. It is not a repeat of the Bitcoin Cash fork.

Bitcoin Is A Beautiful System. It Will Win.

Despite all the noise, internal fights and external attacks, the price of Bitcoin goes higher. It will survive and get better. Even China can't kill Bitcoin. Bitcoin is what the majority of users agree is Bitcoin and the consensus process is constantly changing. We can't explain what is Bitcoin but we all know one when we see one. This is a social movement like we have never seen before. Hope you profit from this.