I don't know, what are you guys thinking now? Huge migration of hashpower back to BTC as it's way more profitable, and a downward adjustment of difficulty coming for BTC as well to make it even moreso. Have we been a bit overzealous in the "chain death spiral" talk?
If miners really just follow the more profitable coin, won't this hashpower swing just keep going back and forth? And how does the emergency difficulty get activated for BCH?
So many moving pieces, so much information, hard to know what to do. In full disclosure, I've moved some BCH back to BTC: still hodling a BCH majority in about a 70/30 split.
I feel more aligned ideologically with BCH, but I don't understand all the behind-the-scenes mechanics well enough to put all my eggs in that basket. The hashrate migration and profitability moving to BTC means I have to hedge my bet and realize that maybe I got too emotional.
Curious what all you other BCHers are thinking and doing right now with this latest swing, @ancap47, @pphan, @wvm, @belerophon, @crypt0, @melip?
Have I been overzealous? Not by much, Bitcoin fees are ridiculous compared to Bitcoin Cash, and going to get worse. I would say this is a case of temporary irrationality in the market. Mostly a lot of people who don't understand yet.
Bitcoin Cash miners are adapting by allowing another Emergency Difficulty Adjustment to kick in and be more profitable by tomorrow. This is why the pain for segwit-bitcoin is just being prolonged and not stopped: Any time Bitcoin Cash loses hashpower, it has EDA and can keep mempool clear with big blocks, every time it swings the other way, things just get worse for segwit-coin (mempool and fees bloat). Bitcoin might have escaped the death spiral this time, but how many times can it?
Thanks for responding.
And BCH can keep doing Emergency Difficulty Adjustments for....how long? In perpetuity? Is that the caveat that could potentially bring BTC down, like you say, how many times can it escape the death spiral? Nobody seemed to mind the mempool and fees bloat this past time, if market value is any indication. The question is, will they eventually care?
I guess I just got a little wrapped up in the whole death spiral thing and I think it's a looooong game here and maybe even, in the meantime, some other coin rises to the forefront while these two play their back and forth. We shall see!
Looks like the miners are really gaming it. They stopped mining long enough to lock in 5 EDAs and now it is going to be more profitable to mine again right around the time segwit is activated.