Welcome my Steemit friends. Big Changes are coming to Bitcoin. You need to prepare and be ready!

There is much talk about changes coming to the code of Bitcoin. Like Ethereum which split into two coins, the other one being Ethereum Classic, Bitcoin could split.

Source: steemit.com
As you watch the arguments over who has the better changes you need to pay attention to the timeline in which changes will occur as it will affect the value of your Steem. Fortunately, as an owner of Steem, Steem is also tied to Ethereum!. You can trade Steem for Ethereum.

Who Are The Sides In The War?

Bitmain Corporation - the maker of mining hardware, a consortium of larger companies such as Coinbase, also Merchants
Bitcoin Developers - those who write the software. There are several camps
Bitcoin Users and Merchants

Why Are They Fighting?

Source: coindesk.com

Speed and Cost of Transactions
Centralization versus Decentralization
Block Size
The Ability to Add Additional Software
Control over Bitcoin
Return on Investment, especially those who have invested billions

Source: steemit.com - @jeff-kubitz

This is the beginning of the timeline July 1st, so in just two weeks.

On July 1st, Bitmain will have ready a UAHF, User Activated Hard Fork to stop BIP 148, a developer activated Soft Fork.

For those who do not understand what mining is - Mining is the processing of transactions. Miners run cryptocurrency networks like Bitcoin. Their machinery is what powers the network.

Greed set in and special machines and their computer chips called ASICs, Application Specific Integrated Circuits were invented to process the transactions faster. The companies like Bitmain, the maker of 80 percent of all mining hardware or computers for the novice, are now very necessary for the workings of cryptocurrencies or many of them.

Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin could originally be mined on your cell phone or your personal computer. That is the way most were designed. The first switch for speed was when a graphics card and the processors or computer chips in the graphics card were reprogrammed to mine. Miners are paid a reward when they solve a transaction called a block.

For Bitcoin, the miners want the block size increased to 2 megabytes. Inside that block, there will be many Bitcoin transactions, not just one like there used to be. That way, transactions will be much faster and less expensive.

What Is Wrong With That?

Source: cryptocoinsnews.com

There really is nothing wrong with the idea. Bitcoin already made the size of the block 1 megabyte just a little while ago and Bitcoin became very fast again. However, some day there will be no more coins for Bitcoin Miners to receive for solving the transactions. When that happens, there are a couple of choices:

All the miners go broke
The number of Bitcoins is increased

Source: newsbtc.com

If the miners go broke, oddly there will be no real effect on Bitcoin. Your computer or phone not competing with huge banks of dedicated mining computers will solve the transaction but probably not as fast. How much slower? That part is hard to say.

One advantage is that Bitcoin will again be completely decentralized. That bad part is how big will the database be? Most people place their cryptocurrency wallets with a company. Why? In order for you to download and run your own wallet the amount of data is insane. Bitcoin's blockchain is 100+ Gigabytes and growing every second. That is about 25 DVD's.

After you download just one wallet, your computer must process the data and then your wallet is up and running. That can take days. We just went through that with the Steemit Hard Fork.

Good news - Steem is worth a lot more. Bad news, it took a month

The same thing could happen with Bitcoin although it is not predicted to take place. Why, one of the changes being proposed is the Segregated Witness that is used here at Steemit. Litecoin just did this last month. They have reported no problems as of the June 14th. The Segregated Witness fork know as SegWit was successful.

Bitcoin Developers Want SegWit - Miners Want Segwit2X

qz.com
Source: qzprod.files.wordpress.com

BIP 148 Implements SegWit and will be right around July 1st. The miner consortium say they will put in the UAHF if BIP 148 is implemented to stop the change. Most people say the miner consortium is bluffing especially after LiteCoin and its successful implementation of SegWit.

The next change might be August 1st!

If Bitmain does decide to do the UAHF in response to BIP 148, on August 1st, Bitmain plans to implement SegWit2x.

During these times, Bitcoin could become very volatile.

Those of us who were with Steemit when it Hard Forked know that serious changes occurred and one thing that happened was no one received any awards of any decent amount for awhile. It was tough and it was tough to stay motivated to post. It was also a great time for a vacation from posting.

Why are these changes coming?

Speed
Efficiency
Cost
Decentralization (This might be number one!)

What You Can Do

Watch the Markets
Know your Avenues of Escape
Be Aware that fairly soon, just like with Ethereum, LiteCoin, Dash, Monero...and so many other coins - Once achange is accepted they could rebound so fast and jump in price so high that you lose big.

Source: @jeff-kubitz

Steem can be exchanged for Ethereum on Poloniex and other Exchanges.

Bitcoin is the standard and can be exchanged for just about any coin that there is, including USDT and CASH, or fiat currency.

That means that if there is a problem in Bitcoin, expect the values of other coins to go absolutely wild. As with anything else, you could go broke or you could also become instantly rich.