Splitting a currency unit into two does not dilute the currency any more than moving the decimal point does.
In order to dilute you would need to create new units and issue them to someone other than existing holders.
Well mining does create new units, doesn't it? And instead of having +6mn coins, you then have +12mn due to parallel mining of +3600 coins on each fork.
Regarding existing holders, if you have your own keys you are relatively ok (minus the obvious destruction of USD value), but the situation with coins in online exchanges and wallets will be "problematic" if say an exchange with 500k BTCs, say 'ok my clients, now you have 500k BTCCs because we adopted this fork' (and
we are keeping 500k BTCs of the other fork for ourselves). It would be like stealing BTCs and exchanging them for Gavincoins.
People need to do a bank run in every exchange (maybe even online wallets too) well before we reach the point of the hard fork, to ensure that they have control of their BTCs.
Alex, what have you been smoking dear boy? I'd like some.
Exchanges would be in court for years, well the ones that didn't have their doors smashed in, if they tried a slight of hand like that
Karpeles got away with 700k BTCs and said "oops, malleability bug".
They could easily say "well... you know... hard fork... force majeure! Not our fault".
Why would anyone risk this instead of pulling their money out.
Because the maintainance of the ledger IS NOT the ledger itself. There is no risk in holding any amount of bitcoin on both forks.
Unless exchanges commit to offering both BTC and BTCC trading, with dual wallets, dual market engines etc, any BTC coins that remain in an exchange that "shifts" to BTCC can (and probably will be) "confiscated" and users will be given only ...gavincoins / BTCCs. Exchanges will have all sort of excuses to offer about how they are not obligated to do dual wallets for every different chain other than the dominant one, etc etc. They can even cite the protocol specifications and claim that the BTCCs are actually the real bitcoins and that BTCs are just an invalid shorter chain or something - so why would they even keep track of them, etc etc.
The fork can easily be a heist tool. Don't leave any coins on pools, exchanges, etc etc before any hard fork. If you own the keys, you'll get btcs AND btccs, so you can then dump whatever you don't like. Don't let exchanges take them and dump them for THEIR profit.
Any exchange that is on the bitcoinclassic.com page, essentially has a stated intention of turning your deposited BTCs into gavincoins / BTCCs and keeping your BTCs - unless they explicitly offer both BTC and BTCC trading options.
Even if one is a BTCC supporter, he'd rather have his BTCs for dumping (or HODLing) instead of the exchange who will keep the profit of the BTC-chain.