Personally, I think s2x will be the longest chain, because BTC hash rate will be inadequate to keep up.
BTC hash rate responds to economics. Within the incentive structure designed by Satoshi, as tx fees pile up and compete "inadequate" hash rate is a self-correcting problem.
Users will use the chain with lower fees, where you can actually get a confirm before your beard turns white. Core will suffer a massive difficulty bomb, and if 80% of the hash is on s2x, it will take 4x longer to get a confirm. Also, there will be more xns in an s2x block, so miners are incentivized by the total fees, even when fees are only ~50% of the fees on core.
I don't really care which one wins, but I am taking a flyer on s2x for these reasons. Not in 250 BTC size, however. I am just buying the b2x futures. There I can also daytrade a bit to lower my cost basis, which I cannot do with Back's contract.
If (Frappuchino swilling retail) users only cared about lower fees and faster confirms, they would by now surely be using Digibyte or Dash.
Yet, there is something (cough, immutable uncensorable decentralized store of value, cough) that keeps them using Bitcoin despite it being slow and expensive.
You still aren't understanding how Satoshi's exquisitely balanced incentive structure restricts your scenario to a self-limiting, auto-correcting situation.
I think what you're missing is that currently the main use of Bitcoin for most "Users" is HODLING. The Xapo/Bitpay payment rail stuff is just a noisy minority LARPing as 'disruptive' fintech, not a plurality.
Let's try again, in BASIC pseudocode.
10 "Massive" hash rate leaves Bitcoin for Bcash/Bcash2X/LatestControversialFork
20 Users fear "massive difficulty bomb"
30 Users rush to dump Bitcoin for Ethereum or whatever shiny scheisstoken is being hyped by a celebrity/DCG affiliate
40 Fees accumulate in proportion to the number of panic-dumping users moving coins onto exchanges, increasing incentives to mine Bitcoin blocks
50 (Replacy-by-)Fees compete and spiral upward as Users panic buy Bitcoin blockchain space/priority in their stampede for the exits, again increasing incentive to mine Bitcoin blocks
60 A Bitcoin block is mined, relieving concern (trolling) that Honey Badger has been killed by (muuuuuh) massive difficulty bomb
70 Price of Bitcoin rises as panic selling finds a bottom and bounces off support, yet again increasing incentive to mine Bitcoin blocks
80 In Two Weeks(tm) Bitcoin difficulty adjusts accordingly and Hodlers (IE the real socioeconomic majority) come back from vacation wondering what all the fuss was about
90 GOTO 10If I thought there was a good chance of B2X killing Core, I'd dump all my Bitcoin since that would be the resolution of the (initial) Bitcoin experiment and it would no longer have a reason to exist.
Why do you find Bitcoin interesting enough to own if you believe it may easily be subverted by a consortium of (ratfucking) VCs and banksters?
Regardless, the real black swan in the living room is the possibility of a PoW change.
If the unthinkable happens and 2X wins, it doesn’t mean Bitcoin has been “changed”, it means Bitcoin has been temporarily destroyed, and we need to get to work to collectively recreate it. We won’t surrender and we won’t compromise. A new hard fork will be released with a new PoW algorithm and we’ll carry on as normal.
Those that urge we accept the verdict of the market are missing the entire point of Bitcoin. Bitcoin is about individual financial sovereignty; we don’t let any external entity such as the market, miners, central bank or government define for us what is and isn’t a Bitcoin. If we don’t like the 2X abomination, we can reject it and route around it. We aren’t forced to surrender.
The market and exchanges should be prepared to support three different forks of Bitcoin this November. The original chain, the 2X chain, and the new Bitcoin chain with a better PoW. As soon as the new PoW hard fork binaries are released on Bitcoin.org, I intend to fully commit to supporting that chain and calling it “Bitcoin”, even if hash rate returns to the original chain at a later date.
You don't really think we'd let philistine scum like NewJeff/Barry/Roger/Jihan desecrate Bitcoin without activating our Samson Option, do you?
Best of luck with your attack fork pumps! If you do manage to boost Bcash and/or B2X over BTC parity, I look forward to dumping mine for more Monero!