The drama in the Bitcoin world is really crazy. I've been only reading some bits here on HN for a long time, but a couple months ago I started playing a bit on the market (with very small sums) as a distraction, and witnessed something interesting.

Right when I started, a vote had begun on Litecoin (or LTC, which is a cryptocurrency which is mostly based on Bitcoin code) to decide on the adoption of this Segwit technology; the vote required miners to "signal" their support for the tech. Adoption would lock in if the signaling stayed over 75% of the "hashing power" for one full voting period (around 2 weeks), and was necessary to breathe new life into LTC, which had stagnated for a long time.

There were a couple websites to track this vote, but no one had a time chart, so I hacked one together and decided to published it (1). As you can see from the chart, in the first few days, support for Segwit quickly grew to just above 20%, and then pretty much stalled there for almost two months.

This is where things got interesting. At the beginning of April, support shot up to just below 70%, as some major mining pools decided to signal for Segwit. Litecoin price also shot up... but then, very quickly, it dipped by 10%.

What had happened? As I learned from reddit, some mining pools opposing Segwit had increased their hashrate. The price of litecoin, of course, crashed. You can bet those same actors who controlled the hashing power made a pretty penny from these ups and downs...

A few days passed. On r/litecoin, there was fury against the offending pools. But then, a new biggish pool starts signaling, bringing the value above 75%, and then even 80%. Prices boom. People rejoice. Segwit adoption looks like a done deal for the next voting period.

But when the period actually starts, the non-signaling pools brutally increase their hashing power, bringing down the value to 60%. Rage, insults, cries to start a UASF (search on google if you're curious to know what this is).

So, who can so easily swing the hashing power of a pretty big coin? The community is 100% certain: it's Jihan Wu, founder of Bitmain, the biggest maker of those same chips that allow the ASICBOOST trick the article writes about. And which can also be used to mine Litecoin.

It's easy to imagine what happens to LTC prices with this second manipulation - and, again, to imagine the money those in the know could make. But the big question is: is this just a big manipulation to make money, or is Jihan Wu actually dead set at blocking Segwit also on Litecoin?

The last twist in this plot comes after a meeting in China, between the top miners and the creator of LTC, Charlie Lee. There they find an agreement and Jihan Wu starts signaling for Segwit, bringing the percentage to 98% and locking in adoption during the last period. This happened a week ago; one more LTC price boom, one last big opportunity to make easy money, and, at last, the end for this drama.

So, in a week, litecoin will deploy this famous Segwit code, and it will be possible to see if this brings any changes to how miners with ASICBOOST enabled chips mine.

I personally have conflicting sentiments about cryptocurrencies, but one thing is sure: right now they offer a very interesting experience, both for the technologies they use, and for the opportunity to see something very similar to what I had read about the stock market during the gilded age. Keep your popcorn ready.

(1) http://litecoin-segwit.info/