In BriefThe battle for the future of Bitcoin is heating up. Twoopposing camps, one consisting of miners and the other ofdevelopers, are struggling to work out an ideological rift thatcould lead to a civil war that splits the cryptocurrency in two assoon as August. A House Divided Bitcoin may be themost popular, longest standing cryptocurrency, but that doesnt mean its path forward is without potential conflict. In fact, analysts are now predicting that the cryptocurrency is on the brink of a civil war that would put Captain America and Iron Mans to shame.

Like the Marvel story, the Bitcoin rift is an ideological one.On one side of the divide are the bitcoin miners who oversee every transaction made on the Bitcoin blockchain. On the other side are the developers thathave maintained Bitcoins bug-proof software theyre led by a group called Core.

The problem of how to handle increased Bitcoin traffic has caused the rift. The former group wants to increase Bitcoins block size limit in order to process more transactions. Meanwhile, the latter wants to move data off the main network, which would diminish the influence of miners and essentially make Bitcoin more enterprise-friendly, like its main competitor, Ethereum.

Its moderates versus extremists, Stephen Pair, chief executive officer of bitcoin wallet provider BitPay, told Bloomberg. It depends on how much a person values the majority of people staying on one chain at least for a little while longer, versus splitting and allowing each [to pursue] their own vision for scaling.

Whats ironic about this situation is that its made possible by blockchains decentralized nature, which is often heralded as one of the technologys most interesting features. The absence of a central Bitcoin authority has made it difficult for a consensus to be reached.

At any rate, a compromise called the SegWit2x updatehas been developed, and it should be available by July 21. It changes how some of Bitcoins data will be storedwhile also doubling the block size limit.

Though support for SegWit2x is reportedly high, no one knows for sure how it will be received until it is actuallyreleased. Its a high-stakes game of chicken, Arthur Hayes from Hong Kong-based BitMEX told Bloomberg. If youre a trader, theres a lot of uncertainty as to what happens.

Bitcoin has been enjoyinga continuous upward trend in market valuefor the past several months at one point, it was evenmore valuable than gold. Well have to wait to see if this growth can continue past the next couple of weeks, which will possibly be the most turbulent in Bitcoins history. As Hayes said, Once theres a definitive signal about what will be done, the price could move very quickly.

Disclosure: Several members of the Futurism team, including the editors of this piece, are personal investors in a number of cryptocurrency markets. Their personal investment perspectives have no impact on editorial content.

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The Finance World Is Preparing for a Bitcoin Civil War - Futurism