During the last couple of months, numerous members of the bitcoin community have expressed their regarding what may happen in case the block size debate fails to reach a consensus, and bitcoin takes the road to a hard fork.
At this moment in time, web wallet owners are the most concerned, and this is quite understandable given the fact that a lot of information about the possible repercussions of a hard fork isn’t available yet. With this in mind, numerous people believe that in case of a fork, they’ll be stuck with the chain that their web wallet provider decides to choose, whereas others believe that their own coins will be split between two chains, with no possibility to withdraw from one chain, and move to the other. An eventual decrease in value will likely bring about a lot of panic and confusion, and fuelled by the hard fork, if not treated accordingly, may lead to the fall of the digital currency giant.
Digital currency experts from all around the world have begun giving advice, and expressing more of their concerns. For instance, Aleksandar Matanovic believes that online wallet providers and bitcoin exchanges will be facing the hardest work, as the adjustments they’ll need to make won’t be easy. Additionally, he is also encouraging people to keep coins in both of the chains after the possible split. In a recent press statement, he also mentioned that: “Hardly anyone expected we would have ETC, so exchanges just kept doing what they had been doing before and were adding ETC later. With BTC it would be difficult because it seems that, in the case of a hard fork, both chains will be very significant right from the moment of splitting.”
Getting prepared for a possible hard fork isn’t too easy either. With this in mind, for those who do not know, a hard fork will create two copies of the blockchain, or better said, two bitcoin networks. Once this happens, users and miners will be free to choose which version they want to use. So far, it is thought that the side backing Bitcoin Core will be the successful one in the long run, in case the hard fork does end up happening. Something that people should be aware of is the fact that exchanges will likely freeze their withdrawals for a period of time, due to the large currency volatility that we will likely experience.
Regardless, in case you happen to have a total of 10 bitcoin right now, after the fork, you’ll end up having 10 bitcoin on one network, and 10 bitcoin on the other, thus doubling your amount, so you won’t end up losing any of your coins, but the contrary. Regardless, it is too early to guess the value that bitcoin will be trading at in the event of a hard fork, so it’s better to hope that consensus will be reach, and that we won’t have to go down the fork path. Let’s all just remember what happened to Ethereum, when they decided to have their hard fork.
Based on everything that has been outlined so far, do you think a bitcoin hard fork will actually happen because of the block size debate? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.