Global Woes Good for Bitcoin, But First Things First

As global market jitters and economic uncertainty continue to increase throughout 2016, we think bitcoin is in a unique position to capture the imagination of struggling populations worldwide. That said, the HF and block size issues must be resolved before that can happen.

It is not these issues themselves that are inherently damaging to bitcoin and its markets, it is the rancor and infighting they produce as a side effect that is counterproductive. While the level of animosity between the big block advocates (Classic) and the small blockists (Core) has receded slightly, we think there remains considerable misunderstanding on both sides of the aisle that can and should be resolved prior to a breakout of our current trading range.

In fact, over the past few weeks we at BBA have been rather vocal about the fact that we are now OK with a block size increase to 2MB, as well as other future scalings, although we will not support it if it is done in a contentious way that creates a competitive hard fork like Classic is currently proposing. We would love to see language added to the Core roadmap that specifically addresses the fact that bigger blocks will be implemented once other more pressing changes like SegWit are completed. This would dispell alot of rumor and inuendo, and would allow the community to move on to other projects.
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Having said all of that, even if Classic does continue on with their current plan of a 75%, 28- day threshold for a HF, we expect it to go the way of XT and die a slow death that never even reaches the trigger point. Right now it appears as though almost all new Classic nodes are either old XT or Unlimited nodes that are being switched, while Core nodes remain well above 80% as they have since the first release of XT. We think the market will start pricing in the lower probability of a contentious HF at some point, and are therefore still in the bull camp longer term.
Cheers,