No HardFork will happen -Most exchanges say BU will at *best be an ALT-Coin.

[PseudoCode]

Taken from https://bravenewcoin.com/news/bitcoin-exchanges-announce-contingency-plan-for-hard-fork-split/

Bitfinex, Bitstamp, BTC China, Bitsquare, Bittrex, Coinfloor, itBit, Kraken, ShapeShift, Zaif, and nine others will
"support Bitcoin Core continuously as BTC”  and "will not even consider listing BU coin until replay attack protection is in place"

(Replay attack protection is a method to prevent spending of existing coins on *both chains, which would be possible if BU went ahead with its confrontational plan to try to *replace BTC).

“We have decided to designate the Bitcoin Unlimited fork as BTU (or XBU). The Bitcoin Core implementation will continue to trade as BTC (or XBT) and all exchanges will process deposits and withdrawals in BTC even if the BTU chain has more hashing power.”

Jihan Wu, who recently switched over 75 percent of his mining pool's power to support BU, sulked at the news and referred to the exchanges as “not world class level.”

"Bitcoin Core developer Jameson Lopp tweeted, “It appears that BU devs have no intention of adding replay protection - their plan is to kill the Core chain instead.”

But since the exchanges have basically given that idea the big finger, BU will have to figure out how they are going to survive without the exchanges, or accept their fate as just another alt-coin.

“We do this not out of judgement or philosophical reasons but rather for practical and operational considerations,” the group declared.

Suck it up hard-fork FUDsters..   BU is dead.

[BitcoinHodler]

Facts we have:
1. there is still 45% more hashrate needed to reach the minimum and no miner is stupid enough to start at 75% total they will wait for a lot more %% before even thinking about increasing the block size and "splitting".

2. F2pool, the next big mining pool with the biggest hashrate will not swith. they are currently studying SegWit and they are considering activating it on litecoin to test and then if successful move to bitcoin.

3. in case someday a hard fork happened it will either be a stupid altcoin with low hashrate support (less than 10% because Wu will leave if he thinks he is alone) and will worth literary nothing or the fork with happen with 90%+ of hashrate and there will be no other chain and price will go to the moon.

[davis196]

This is good news and i think that most of the panic caused by BU should stop after all the bitcoin users read this.
Nobody outside the bitcoin community would be able to destroy bitcoin,but the real danger comes from people within the community who think that they will solve the major btc issues by creating a "fake bitcoin".

[numismatist]

(Replay attack protection is a method to prevent spending of existing coins on *both chains, which would be possible if BU went ahead with its confrontational plan to try to *replace BTC).

Care to explain in simple words for the tech weary? From my knowledge "replay" implies "play" first, a wallet address that don't move (like cold store, or Satoshi's BTC) cannot be touched.

"Bitcoin Core developer Jameson Lopp tweeted, “It appears that BU devs have no intention of adding replay protection - their plan is to kill the Core chain instead.”

That is some serious assault. Nobody in a right state of mind can support people of those intentions.

[bitart]

This is only about BU, it seems that problem has been solved now.
But what about SegWit? Could it also cause a hard fork, or it will have only minor effect on bitcon?
It would be nice to see all the news in one place

[aso118]

This is only about BU, it seems that problem has been solved now.
But what about SegWit? Could it also cause a hard fork, or it will have only minor effect on bitcon?
It would be nice to see all the news in one place

No, SegWit would not cause a hard fork. It is compatible with previous versions, or a soft fork.
But the support for SegWit is lesser than the support for Bitcoin Unlimited now.

[zby]

What is the OP talking about? How exchanges can list BU as an altcoin if there is no HardFork?

[Pierre 2]

This is very good news.
I feel like dump ers will return to btc.
This is like discussion closed. BU feels like scam.

[randy8777]

This is only about BU, it seems that problem has been solved now.
But what about SegWit? Could it also cause a hard fork, or it will have only minor effect on bitcon?
It would be nice to see all the news in one place

No, SegWit would not cause a hard fork. It is compatible with previous versions, or a soft fork.
But the support for SegWit is lesser than the support for Bitcoin Unlimited now.

another thing is that bucoin needs a significant lower support percentage to activate. that's what is causing the current panic among traders and fellow community members. it would be a good thing if all miners from antpool start pointing their gear towards another pool as some sort of a boycott, but that will most likely not happen.

[RyNinDaCleM]

What is the OP talking about? How exchanges can list BU as an altcoin if there is no HardFork?

No, what will happen is this. In the event that Bitcoin forks into BTCcore and BTC unlimited. BU will be considered an alt (by default) by exchanges. But if the network moves toward BU and it becomes the longest/strongest/most secure chain, BU will be bitcoin and BTC core will be the alt. Exchanges have ZERO control outside of their "word".

The exchanges lay claim to play god over what is the true Bitcoin? Exchanges have no say and anything they say is only to sway the market in their best interests (higher prices with no fork). It is a manipulation attempt. If they can be heard by the majority (read majority of the money) then they profit. If we fork, BTC tanks, and their profits go down the hole for some time until confidence is restored.

[travwill]

The nomenclature of considering any coin besides bitcoin an Alt-coin is dated as this point.  There may be a time when another coin has a value per coin that is worth more than Bitcoin core.

[numismatist]

...If we fork, BTC tanks, and their profits go down the hole for some time until confidence is restored.

A doubling of coin supply, going from 21 up to 42 would at least solve that Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything from Douglas Adams novel.
Coinfidence would never ever return. Limited supply beeing a foundation of everything.
Forking or 42 are just the wrong answer.

[zby]

What is the OP talking about? How exchanges can list BU as an altcoin if there is no HardFork?

No, what will happen is this. In the event that Bitcoin forks into BTCcore and BTC unlimited. BU will be considered an alt (by default) by exchanges. But if the network moves toward BU and it becomes the longest/strongest/most secure chain, BU will be bitcoin and BTC core will be the alt. Exchanges have ZERO control outside of their "word".

The exchanges lay claim to play god over what is the true Bitcoin? Exchanges have no say and anything they say is only to sway the market in their best interests (higher prices with no fork). It is a manipulation attempt. If they can be heard by the majority (read majority of the money) then they profit. If we fork, BTC tanks, and their profits go down the hole for some time until confidence is restored.

The two branches will have different consensus - length between them is not that easy to compare, it is not like oridinary two branches of blockchain that comply to the same protocol. The name is contentious thing, your argument only shows that the drama will be high.

And by they way you did not answer my question at all. The title of this thread is nonsense - if there are two branches then there was a HardFork.

[iamnotback]

If Bitcoin Unlimited is able to create blocks Core won't accept, then it becomes an alt and everybody sells it to buy BTC. Same as for ETC dumped to buy ETH.

Everybody who waited to dump ETC was a loser, so FOMO effect will take hold again.

BU is deadman walking. Probably won't even make it to HF based on my recent technical posts.

[seradj0]

Jihan Wu gonna be mad

[RyNinDaCleM]

What is the OP talking about? How exchanges can list BU as an altcoin if there is no HardFork?

No, what will happen is this. In the event that Bitcoin forks into BTCcore and BTC unlimited. BU will be considered an alt (by default) by exchanges. But if the network moves toward BU and it becomes the longest/strongest/most secure chain, BU will be bitcoin and BTC core will be the alt. Exchanges have ZERO control outside of their "word".

The exchanges lay claim to play god over what is the true Bitcoin? Exchanges have no say and anything they say is only to sway the market in their best interests (higher prices with no fork). It is a manipulation attempt. If they can be heard by the majority (read majority of the money) then they profit. If we fork, BTC tanks, and their profits go down the hole for some time until confidence is restored.

The two branches will have different consensus - length between them is not that easy to compare, it is not like oridinary two branches of blockchain that comply to the same protocol. The name is contentious thing, your argument only shows that the drama will be high.

And by they way you did not answer my question at all. The title of this thread is nonsense - if there are two branches then there was a HardFork.

Oh, ha, I guess I misread your questions, because I didn't even catch the contradiction when you worded it like that.
Also, I agree it will be a battle, and the way I read the "Contingency plan" was that it could be weeks or maybe months to actually confidently name the winning branch based on network/market forces.

[iamnotback]

Jihan Wu gonna be mad

The youth can only learn by burning their hands in the fire of experience.

[r0ach]

A doubling of coin supply, going from 21 up to 42 would at least solve that Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything from Douglas Adams novel.
Coinfidence would never ever return. Limited supply beeing a foundation of everything.
Forking or 42 are just the wrong answer.

The value of a bitcoin is based on cost of production and not scarcity in the first place anyway:

You're acting like bitcoin has a finite supply.  In theory it does, but not in practice since transaction fees are recycled and mining continues FOREVER.  It's the equivalent of if platinum costs $1000 an ounce to mine at some point but people are recycling old cars and getting it for $100 an ounce.  The lowest available price is the only one that matters.  It doesn't matter if the cost of production was $1 million for a coin at some point. It's an open entropy system so if the cost of production goes to zero, people simply plug into the system and mine those recycled coins for free rather than paying you $1 million.  

If there are no recycled fees to mine, it means the system was already dead in the first place.  The act of making fees recycle is the equivalent of infinite supply when a bitcoin is an arbitrary unit in the first place, just with the store of value aspect of that supply resting on cost of production instead of scarcity.  Each halving doubles cost of production, which enables you to increase price or lower mining input.  If you run out of halvings and then lower cost of production, you should have a corresponding effect to devalue other already existing coins.  Do you see now why cost of production actually does matter?

And another comparing metals vs bitcoin economics:

Secondly, bitcoin having a potentially wildly floating cost of production is one of it's greatest weaknesses and one reason it's not a store of value.  A wildly volatile to the downside cost of production is a black swan event in itself and would render confidence in that asset to nothingness.  If we lived in an open ecosystem, which anyone who claims we will be mining asteroids for metals does, then the cost of production and it's ability to not plummet is the main factor that makes gold a store of value at all.  If you live in a closed ecosystem it's not that big of a factor since you're bound by supply.

As for bitcoin, the fact that mining NEVER ENDS is exactly the equivalent of using gold as money while being in an open ecosystem.  If cost of production craters, you're screwed.  This can happen in bitcoin easily.
The act of previous holders just hoarding their money and refusing to sell low doesn't help because the network is officially dead in the first place if there's no mining fees to siphon off at this new lower cost of production, so the fresh lower cost of production coins drag everything else down with it.

[mindrust]

If Bitcoin Unlimited is able to create blocks Core won't accept, then it becomes an alt and everybody sells it to buy BTC. Same as for ETC dumped to buy ETH.

Everybody who waited to dump ETC was a loser, so FOMO effect will take hold again.

BU is deadman walking. Probably won't even make it to HF based on my recent technical posts.

Exactly this. I was waiting in FIAT just to see things resolved but I watched that retard Ver's video conference with some DASH fanboy who is way even retarder than him and i realized that BU has no future. By the way everything is going smooth and there is only 1000 unconfirmed transactions or smth which shows that Core team saw the threat and have taken measures.

Even if they are fool enough to make a HF without the support of the majority, people will dump their altcoins for real btc.

If they ever manage to convince the majority... well then it means they really deserve to be the future of bitcoin. And no-one can say the otherwise.