[chasote]

The "in case" part is what I don't understand. This wording from Coinbase also makes it seem like things are still up in the air. August 1st is in a few days! How can there still be ambiguity with what is going to happen? That seems crazy to me.

[chowells]

What happens is an emergent phenomenon based on the actions of at least a few hundred actors who each will be watching closely and may revise their decisions several times along the way.

[LeoPanthera]

As far as I know there is no ambiguity. BCC will be created via a fork on August 1.

[sowbug]

This is a pedantic point, but Bitcoin forks happen frequently as part of the blockchain design (see https://blockchain.info/orphaned-blocks for around 20 forks last month). The only differences for the August 1 event are that the fork will be given a name (Bitcoin Cash), and that some people will be running modified code that doesn't care if its fork is shorter than the main chain. Observing that the fork will exist isn't the important thing. It's whether anyone will care after a week or two.

[Dylan16807]

People are using 'fork' to mean 'multiple branches of the blockchain are considered authoritative', not 'multiple branches of the blockchain exist in an immediately-abandoned state'.

[thinkloop]

In the world of blockchain it doesn't happen until it happens, but it looks like it will happen.