The bad actors have created the fake civil war on purpose. It's about 20% real.
Bitcoin XT and Mike Hearn, Bitcoin Classic and Gavin, Bitcoin Unlimited and Roger Ver.
Three attempts to take-over development with a woefully inadequate support from programmers. Each attack has failed on technical measures before even fooling enough people. Each time they spun up fake nodes on VPS's to mimic support.
The three characters above were once great assets to the Bitcoin community but have become compromised, blackmail, payments or who knows what - but they are being led around by the balls, or truly idiots.
First they ignore you.
<--- all other crypto/altcoins are still hereThen they laugh at you.
Then they fight you.
<--- Bitcoin is here nowThen you win.
People don't realize that 'they' (the powers that be) are now circling Bitcoin like sharks, trying desperately in whatever ways they can to slow it down, set it back, or kill it forever.
'They' have run out of physical/technical ways to try and hinder or bring down Bitcoin (e.g., 0day bugs/hacks, DDoS, MtGox insolvency, exchanges hacked and/or going offline, FUD/negative news, etc.)
Now they only have one real play left:
Social Engineering. They load up the forums with shills/trolls, trying to split the community and sway public opinion against Bitcoin in general. They prop up and promote other alt coins now as "Bitcoin 2.0" and "way better". They string along and stall a Bitcoin ETF ruling for years, only to deny it at the 11th hour and laugh. They have even managed to gaslight former prominent Bitcoin proponents like Gavin, Roger, Mike, and big Chinese miners with false information or outright bullshit (Craig Wright is Satoshi, anyone?).
Once this line of BS fails, and it will, the next wave will be direct head-to-head Bitcoin competition: Gov't sponsored/endorsed Bankcoins, and eventually Bankcoin ETFs.
Believe it. You read it here first.