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from the first-they-ignore-you-then-they-laugh-at-you-then-they-fight-you dept.
As someone that follows the developments in Bitcoinland closely, it has been difficult to find an article that does a good job of summarizing the drama surrounding the community. This Forbes article (Google Cache) only scratches the surface, but does a good job doing so:
On or around November 16, Bitcoin, the original cryptocurrency created by a novel technology called blockchain — a masterpiece of game theory, cryptography and, of all things, the age-old ledger — will split into two chains, each with its own set of coins. Hodlers [Note: 'hodl' - is a meme that started here] should be happy about suddenly owning double the number of Bitcoins except for the fact that the question of which of these will be called the true Bitcoin is, for now, up in the air — and that could create turmoil in the market. Anyone willing to bet their money by selling one set of coins for another stands to take a financial hit — either because they've picked the wrong side, or, for technical reasons, because selling one set may actually cause a sale on both sides of the chain.
[...] How the first cryptocurrency reached this cliffhanger in its journey is a story that has been many years in the making and finally pits against each other what were strange bedfellows anyway: the cypherpunks who, years before Bitcoin even existed, developed the various technologies that finally resulted in the first true digital asset and the Silicon Valley types who popularized the cryptocurrency that now has at least tens of millions of users and a $100 billion market cap. Whether one side will prevail or their death match will destroy Bitcoin is anyone's guess.
Is this how Bitcoin finally dies? (This bitcoiner thinks bitcoin will be wounded, but will live on.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 25 2017, @06:17PM
Sure they have a role, but this wild investment fire in Bitcoin is highly suspicious. The value is in being able to trade cryptographically secure tokens, and what value any one token has will probably drop when there are a few hundred "coins" around. Eventually people will easily be able to pay in 38 Bitcoins 230 Dogecoins 5,883 Ethereum or whatever combo the seller accepts. How such tokens acquire a precise value is the real trick and as the inflation curve shows it is not even close to stable.
Personally I find the transaction fees to be almost identical to the banking model. I'll let the wiki speak for itself.
I like the extortion here: on the other hand, nobody mining new bitcoins necessarily needs to accept the transactions and include them in the new block being created.
So it is voluntary, unless you want your transaction to be accepted, then it is not voluntary. Sure sure anyone can run their own miner, but as has been stated if a group can control enough of the total hashing power then they can become the Bitmafia.