Avoiding such a splinter requires miners to reach at least 92-percent consensus on supporting the second phase of SegWit2x, but that’s becoming increasingly unlikely, according to Wang Chun, co-owner and chief administrator of F2Pool, one of the world’s largest mining pools.
Even though SegWit2x garnered more than 93 percent support in July, miners and developers seem to be backing away from the proposal, a compromise that harbors characteristics disliked by extremists on both sides. Wang said he thinks the split will “happen, 100 percent.”
Many Core developers agree. Several have said they’d prefer to focus on writing code in the future for only the SegWit chain: currently the largest version of bitcoin at about $64 billion in market value.
“Many developers, users, miners, and businesses have already stated they do not agree with the pointless 2x fork, so we’ll likely end up with three chains,” said Samson Mow, chief strategy officer at Blockstream, which has close associations with Core developers. “Long-term, only the main bitcoin chain which has the support of users and developers can survive.”
Then there’s Bitcoin Cash, which was split off so miners could boost the block size of transactions. It’s more useful as it can be moved more quickly and cheaply than other cryptocurrencies, Ver argued. Some bitcoin exchanges and wallets have said they will support the new coin, while others are uncertain whether Bitcoin Cash will have lasting market value.
Already, key players are warning investors to brace for more turmoil. Core developers including Peter Todd say the fork this time could be much more tumultuous, and could incur more user confusion of what version can be dubbed the actual “bitcoin.”
“In a sense, a split is 100-percent guaranteed,” said Todd, a key coding contributor to bitcoin. “The split is likely to be more disruptive.”
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.