Suppose Monero (or a different alt) were to gain enough traction for it to appear inevitable that it would eventually topple bitcoin. How feasible would it be to fork bitcoin to adopt some or all features of Monero? iow, a merger of the first mover advantage of bitcoin with the technical advantages of Monero. I suppose this question has two parts: 1) What would be the technical feasibility of doing this? and 2) Would the community go along?
It is possible to clone any alt-coin and bootstrap it with a snapshot of the unspent outputs in the bitcoin blockchain using the
spin-off method. Using this technique, "Bitcoin the Ledger" could be preserved while "Bitcoin the Payment Network" could be replaced with new technology.
When the spin-off is launched, bitcoin users will have coins in both systems. The two coins will trade against each other on the open market. If the community thinks the new technology is not worth the switch, they will sell these "free" spin-off coins, thereby killing the spin-off. If the community feels the technology is a "must have," they will sell bitcoins in favour of the spin-off, thereby transfer the bulk of the wealth to the new network.
This is a beautiful idea. If it is technologically feasible, and I am sure it is, I see no way how an altcoin technologically superior to bitcoin would be able to hold its ground against an identical spin-off which includes the bitcoin ledger. Are there any convincing arguments against?