OK, I'm out. Sold everything @ 6120 euro. Only have some Dash and Byteball left. Gonna watch this whole Segwit2X-thing from the sidelines, I'll buy back cheaper or more expensive depending on the outcome.
Hope this selling everything pans out as well as the last time I did.
Perhaps we are running out of steam for the moment, (FWIW Tone Vays called top on 5/11.- though we may possibly see another ATH before the fork).
I see many people comparing this fork to the BCash & BTCGold forks, but this is a contentious "upgrade" designed to supplant the existing chain. Nothing we learnt about forks from the last two will have any relevance to this one.
There are a number of risks coming up,
1) Miners attack - inevitably leading to POW change. All significant attacks on the chain will result in a POW change. I don't think a POW change will destroy bitcoin, but it will surely damage the price. This may appear like something they won't do, but it may be a sacrifice someone is willing to make to control the future of Bitcoin. If the hash rate of the existing chain is low enough they could probably do it anonymously. Though of course we will all know who it is.
2) Mike Belshie's cabal of dumpers
https://twitter.com/WhalePanda/status/926407742381789185After the fork, 2X'ers will dump their BTC stash and dramatically reduce the price, this will ensure some of the 'for profit' miners can make more on BCash. The B2X chain is probably a write-off at the beginning as all the NO2X'ers will be dumping their B2X coins. I think it is best if people stagger their dumps, to ensure it keeps the price low over a longer period.
3) CME is a godsend tool for shorters, and has been engineered to come online just before the fork.(2 days before) It is not good news at the moment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0BRyNvgBx8. The current price has a lot of people invested who haven't really been tested in one of the classic BTC dumps. CME will give people an easy opportunity to cause panic in these people.
4) The current split is 85:15 (BTC:B2X) - unlike previous non contentious forks, this one is 'only one can survive'
BTC may well immediately drop 15% after the fork. It shouldn't 'create value out of thin air' like the Cash fork.
5) This could simply be a side effect of the BCH stealing hash rate but, The next difficulty is going down
https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty. You would expect the pro 2X miners to ensure it was higher so the BTC chain finds it more difficult to make blocks, but lowering the difficulty is more indicative that they want to attack the chain. - The easiest attack for them is just creating empty blocks, they could do that by mining as usual, or by mining a secret chain that wipes out many days of the chain once released.
6) The new difficulty algorithm in BCash becomes active a 2 days before the fork, again this has been engineered to ensure BCash can efficiently steal mining power from other chains.
7) The existing BTC chain could stall for a large amount of time, filled with high fee spam and very infrequently blocks. (though, just after the fork, it may proceed as usual to permit the 2X'ers to move coins to the exchanges for dumping).
The stars are all aligning for a significant event.
Clearly most of these probably won't materialise, but they are un-predicatble because, as in a war, they depend of the tactics employed by the opposition. It all depends on the mind of the enemy, something you can't really know for sure.
I don't think people should under estimate that this is a war for Bitcoin. The opposition (miners) have a number of nuclear options available to them, and if pushed towards defeat they may consider using them. They may even have mapped out the scenarios and decide to use them pre-emptively. Any dirty tricks will lead to a retaliation,
I'm bullish for long term BTC, and will only support the original Core Chain, but the times are very uncertain and locking in some profits now is probably a wise move, (TBH I've already completed a sell, as I don't want to get caught in a rush for the door).
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