Of course it will. If it hasn't already then it will eventually. Terrorists like a bit of convenience just as much as the next man.

Can you supply us with a list of sworn depositions from notable people and notarised qualifications that will convince us to trust you?

There's way more to it than just scaling. I think Core themselves often say the scaling is a happy byproduct. It opens the door to a lot of extra functionality that isn't possible, or at least isn't advisable, right now. 

Aren't we constantly being told that seething miner greed is to Bitcoin's advantage?

I've never quite been able to figure out why, it seems painfully obvious to me that individual advantage isn't going to automatically align with the greater good, but that's beyond my pay grade.

Short of offering him his own special block reward to give up his advantage, I can't really think of a single way of doing that.

That's in relatively short supply in Bitcoinland. And if this fella wasn't doing it, somebody else would be and I'm surprised everyone isn't doing it. They probably will be if they can figure out how.

I'm not totally sure where the outrage comes in here. In plenty of ways it's a much less offensive motive than the power grab which many believed BU was, which it is of course too.

Well, it could be argued that it's pure 'free market' and any edge out there is going to grabbed and wrung dry. It's up to the developers to plug the holes, if it's actually definable as a hole.

It also explains a vast amount. I find it reassuring that the BU stuff was already comprehensively shot down before this came to light, but this makes it a whole lot clearer where it was coming from.

So what happens next?

As LTC is a BTC clone and all that entails - limited number of coins, PoW, non disgusting launch, I don't really see why anyone would bother sticking with Bitcoin if Litecoin becomes BTC with knobs on.

As it's currently pretty much unused at the moment, the increased usage from all the extra applications would concurrently increase value. It would attract many more developers than it has right now and all of the merchant/commercial projects on the backburner because of Bitcoin's limitations would probably roll out there instead.

Segwit would enable many possibilities that would be denied Bitcoin. Fees would be far lower. Why would someone want to flit between that and creaky old BTC? There's no particular reason other than sentimentality.

If it can do it once, it can do it again, and again and again.

And if their prime concern is market policing, ETH/ETC is in no way 'better' than BTC. Witness the stealth launch of ETC on Poloniex. That's the type of thing that has regulators creaming their knickers.

Er, no. The period when Bitcoin was at its weakest market wise was 2014 ish. That was also the period when the most merchants came on board. Now plenty of them have buggered off.

Merchant acceptance is great for people who already hold Bitcoin and are sitting on free money. It's useless for the average person who doesn't already have it. They have zero reason to buy something to buy something, especially when the process of buying said something is fraught with hassle and volatility.

This won't change a bean.

I can honestly only think of one instance of good news having a direct effect on price and that was during the senate hearings on Bitcoin in 2013. When the old goats started to sound positive the price climbed $50-100 in seconds.

Even in that case I think they were looking for an excuse to explode more than anything. Bad news instantly affects everyone involved with BTC. Good news is usually some nice snippet that might take effect in 2-3 years if ever.

The only good news that I could see having a truly monstrous effect would be the confirmation of the happening of a non contentious scaling solution. That would be genuinely epic.

Au contraire. I've seen quite a few mentions of higher percentages that that. It could of course been blag and their entire net worth could've been $500, but it's easy to underestimate how many hard core believers there are.

And a lot of people will end up with 80% net worth without even trying if prices rise.

These days I naturally assume anyone occupying a church of any sort is a nonce and it's up to them to disprove this.

Judging by the standard of discourse, I'm not so sure the users are to be depended on to make a decision either. And the people who control the price are the big traders, there probably aren't very many of them and for most the only thing they're interested is the most money.

I think we should ask Papa Smurf to decide. He seems very wise.

As long as everyone does the polar opposite of what their little monkey brains are screaming at them, they'll come out on top. That's where the stone cold part comes in. Once you've removed emotion from the equation then it all opens up. I haven't managed this of course.

That type of behaviour, the constant flitting and emotionality, is what the REAL traders depend on. Normal humans are putty in their hands. When you become a stone cold trading psycho, that's when the real profits roll in.

Hmm. Then again...

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/63alpm/secret_softfork_being_deployed/?sort=confidence

Doubtful. They'd have to return in a different form. The current one has been comprehensively shat all over. Its rise forced almost everyone who's anyone to declare where they stand in this type of situation and it wasn't too encouraging for BU fans.

Who is responsible for EC? How good is their offering?

Anyone coming up with a Core alternative really shouldn't put their head above the parapet until it's A1. Anything will get scrutinised until it passes or pops.

Alts are running out of steam for now. Hopefully the heat of the last few weeks/months will inspire enough people to actually start taking some action.

No idea whether it's possible. If it was then the only direction I'd be heading is the far, far future. A couple of minutes of that would be far more thrilling than a year selling lumps of mud to medieval scum.