I'm not sure if you are being serious but all three of your points are bogus to some extent.

1. The link you provided clearly shows classic and core 0.12 tied for the number of nodes. Support for Classic is much higher than reflected in that chart because there is an ongoing DDOS against classic nodes. Just a few days ago there was over 2,000 Classic nodes. You are also leaving out all the nodes that are voting for a block size increase but aren't classic nodes like Bitcoin Unlimited, and some remaining XT nodes. Once you account for all these factors support for Classic or a block size increase in general is higher than core 0.12 by double or more.

2. Bitcoin Classic has only been out for a week or two of course classic nodes are 'new'. Further a lot of people running classic are doing it in parallel with core before making the switch. Several large high profile mining operations have said as much.

3. Renting hash power has always been a huge sector of the Bitcoin mining industry rented hash power is no more or less legitimate than any other kind. Classic has only been out for a couple weeks and we are just seeing large miners start to mine classic blocks starting this past week. The likely scenario is that they will switch to a 50/50 scenario to start before going 100% classic as a mitigation against DDOS attacks.

I think the question any observer should ask themselves is if core has such massive support as you and others claim then why do they resort to illegal tactics like DDOSing alternative node implementations and similar dirty tricks?

> why do they resort to illegal tactics like DDOSing

Who is the "they" here? Mining operations that are in support of core? Core developers that oppose the change?

It's not clear. A reddit comment by one of the self proclaimed perpetrators says he was paid in order to DDOS nodes with classic in the user agent string. At the same time employees of Blockstream (aka: members of Bitcoin Core's dev team) deny that there are any DDOS attacks taking place[1]. It wouldn't surprise me if Blockstream was somehow behind this but no one is going to publicly admit to such an obviously illegal act.

[0]http://www.blockcy.com/bitcoin-classic-nodes-under-ddos-atta... [1]https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/comments/4835fp/blockstreamgmax...

Agree, all 3 of my Classic Nodes have been taken offline several times last night. Everyone BUT Bitcoin Core says this is happening and has evidence. The only ones denying the crime seem to be most guilty.

I don't think there's an unbiased opinion anywhere. I've tried to figure out what this "classic vs core" debate is, but everyone seems pretty polarized.

This is nothing more than some people trying to appoint themselves BDFL when none is wanted or necessary - pretty standard power vacuum stuff.

What are the technical disagreements, though?

Core: No changes to block size in the short term.

Classic: Implement 2MB blocks ASAP

Thanks for the summary. Seems like a very small difference, and I'm inclined to agree with Classic, so much so that I have no idea how people can be so divided on this.

Consider for a moment the quote that the person or persons known as Satoshi put into the genesis block; many people feel that bitcoin is not broken and not in any danger from the current block size, and do not favor having a process - any process - wherein sufficiently agitated groups can change the basic rules of the game should they garner enough popular support.

This is the "if it ain't broke" crowd. It comprises the majority of early bitcoiners. The notable exceptions are the large, VC-funded businesses that have a specific vested interest in bitcoin being used for widespread retail transactions, a task it is horrendously suited for, even with any arbitrary block size.

Please don't flag posts simply because you disagree with them, even if you disagree strongly. The flag button is not a "downvote".

^ and it continues