To me, hashing power is not the process by which the outcome will be decided.
IMHO, the percentage of technical signalling will not even matter that much.
Two chains will get created quite quickly. And some BTC holders will try to take advantage of the situation.
Since transactions can get replayed on the other chain (and copying them from one chain to the other brings a stability advantage) the technical way things are going to occur is double-spending to different adresses.
... Which means services supporting different chains will be pitted against each other.
Users will empty out one wallet at the same time to one exchange on a chain they don't support, and to another address they control on the chain they support. In cashing out on the exchange, they will crash the market value of that chain.
... Which brings me to: exchanges should start signalling support and come to a consensus pretty quickly, in their own interest. They don't want to be the exchange everybody cashes out on.
Questions abound:
* Have they started signalling it?
* What software are they running?
* If you hold some BTCs: are you planning to double spend?
* How are you going to proceed?
* Which chain do you support, and how many BTC do you possess?
TL;DR: There will be a run. Exchanges will determine the outcome.
Why do you think that being the exchange used for cashing out is a bad position to be for an exchange? My understanding is, exchanges earn money on commissions, so the more volume they get, the better, and cashing out sure is some volume. Those speculators who buy BTC on the wrong chain -- sure, they will take a hit on that. But the exchange itself will still get their commission just fine. Am I missing something here?
Well, it's not the first fork in the world, ethereum's fork was pretty big (ETH vs ETC). As far as I can see, exchanges just treat both sides of the fork as two completely separate currencies (which, in fact, they are).
If I had an exchange I would be sure to check on all forks whether certain coins have been used before allowing processing. Since all forks are known, this is probably how they're going to avoid double-spending.
IMHO, the percentage of technical signalling will not even matter that much.
Two chains will get created quite quickly. And some BTC holders will try to take advantage of the situation.
Since transactions can get replayed on the other chain (and copying them from one chain to the other brings a stability advantage) the technical way things are going to occur is double-spending to different adresses.
... Which means services supporting different chains will be pitted against each other.
Users will empty out one wallet at the same time to one exchange on a chain they don't support, and to another address they control on the chain they support. In cashing out on the exchange, they will crash the market value of that chain.
... Which brings me to: exchanges should start signalling support and come to a consensus pretty quickly, in their own interest. They don't want to be the exchange everybody cashes out on.
Questions abound:
* Have they started signalling it?
* What software are they running?
* If you hold some BTCs: are you planning to double spend?
* How are you going to proceed?
* Which chain do you support, and how many BTC do you possess?
TL;DR: There will be a run. Exchanges will determine the outcome.