I'll be honest and tell you I have watched about 20 videos on the subject, read blogs online and posts on this topic right here in this forum. But after hours (and days) of research, I still cannot get a clear and fundamental, decisive answer to my questions and concerns about the upcoming bitcoin fork this October 2017. The problem is not (I think) that there aren't many of you supremely clever folk who understand the tech and what will happen. The problem is that supremely clever folk only seem to be good at imparting this information to other supremely clever folk and not to the reasonably clever, but not as clever folk who just want to know what the heck is going on!
So, pretend this is a "bitcoin fork for dummies thread," and could some kind soul please try to answer the following in a concise, methodical (yet reasonably simple) way?
We'll start of with an easy one (I think!)
1. There is conflicting information about when this "hard fork" will occur. Even on this page, some say October 16th, some say October 25th, some are as far out as 19th November in YouTube videos. Some clarity would be very helpful.
2. As I understand it, a hard fork is a 'duplication?' of the existing, core Bitcoin blockchain... (BTC)? The new copy still maintains the ledger (ie. all previous transactions), but from a certain block on this future date, will be a brand new alt coin (effectively). Is this the case?
3. Here is where my understanding gets fuzzy... If the current market cap for Bitcoin is, say, 80 billion USD, what happens to that cap? Is it also split? eg. Bitcoin core = 40 billion, Bitcoin gold = 40 billion? Or are we duplicating the worth of our portfolio? (Say I own 1 BTC, will I physically own 1 BTC and 1 BTG after the fork) - How much will my 1 BTC be worth? How much would my 1 BTG be worth? Have I doubled my investment?
4. Where is safest to store my 1 BTC now, before the fork? Is blockchain.info safe? As this is sort of an exchange, they would own my private key, yes? So should I move the bitcoin to a hardware wallet, or some other wallet that provides my private keys?
5. From watching videos on YouTube and reading various blogs, the general advice seems to be to hold on to the bitcoin for a few days after the fork to prevent 'replay attacks' - (Whatever the heck that is!). Is this the right advice? How many days?
I really wish there were greater clarity around events like this so ALL of us could fully understand the implications and have solid advice to work from. Currently, I just see very disjointed, conflicting and half-answered or confusing accounts of this event which is almost upon us (at least I think it is, depending on whose version of events you adopt!)
Many, many thanks to anyone who can lead with an answer to this!
Yours,
A befuddled Bitcoin investor.
