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On August 1 there will be a soft fork (UASF) which can lead to a coin split if miners do not signal segwit. But if miners signal segwit, there will be no split and it will just be a normal day. But the FUD it creates may shake the newbies into dumping their coins.
I have a stupid question, so please don't abuse me.
Why would a miners NOT signal segwit and do the soft fork? That seems to be the no brainer. It is the BU hardfork, with much bigger changes and issues, and potentially losses, that would be questionable participation I would think.
Is it possible there are miners out there asleep at the switch that would inadvertently miss not doing the segwit signal?
Miners like Antpool who belong to Bitmain probably use covert asicboost, althoug they deny it.A method which give them an advantage in mining bitcoin compared to other miners. Some say this advantage makes them $100 to $200million a year! SegWit won't not allow to use ASICBOOST anymore.That advantage would be gone. Now imagine if guys like Jihan Wu would really give up that easy with this advantage. Of course not! They will do whatever they can to stall Bitcoin's technological progress, therefore the activation of SegWit. Furthermore he wants more control over Bitcoin! This all is very likely about a lot of money and power!