Crypto crashes amid bitcoin “civil war”

I have no idea if any of this madness is real, via Bloomie:

It’s time for bitcoin traders to batten down the hatches.

Blame the bitcoin civil war. After two years of largely behind-the-scenes bickering, rival factions of computer whizzes who play key roles in bitcoin’s upkeep are poised to adopt two competing software updates at the end of the month. That has raised the possibility that bitcoin will split in two, an unprecedented event that would send shockwaves through the $41 billion market.

…“It’s a high-stakes game of chicken,” said Arthur Hayes, a former market maker at Citigroup Inc. who now runs BitMEX, a bitcoin derivatives venue in Hong Kong. “If you’re a trader, there’s a lot of uncertainty as to what happens. Once there’s a definitive signal about what will be done, the price could move very quickly.”

Behind the conflict is an ideological split about bitcoin’s rightful identity. The community has bitterly argued whether the cryptocurrency should evolve to appeal to mainstream corporations and become more attractive to traditional capital, or fortify its position as a libertarian beacon; whether it should act more as an asset like gold, or as a payment system.

While to me the entire thing is no more that a giant global ponzi scheme, I’ll offer the advice that aiming to make crypto a libertarian alternative to sovereign fiat is a sure a path to accelerated doom as setting up a pro-democracy movement in Tienanmen Square. It’s only hope of long term survival is to be absorbed by nation states.

For what it is worth, in the past week I have been asked about bitcoin at the gym and at my kid’s soccer club. If you want a signal that a bubble is reaching a peak then that’s one for you.