All the exchanges (which are probably incentivized by the mining farms and mining hardware companies) agree to do something absolutely strange: they will give away to each Bitcoin holder, the equivalent amount in the new coin.
No. Exchanges don't want people to leave their service, so they give them what they would get if they store those bitcoins on their own wallets, where they own their private keys. Not a conspiracy,
And just like that, you don't have a decentralized Bitcoin anymore. You have a new centralized currency, controlled not by the banks and governments, but by Bitcoin whales, mining farms, exchanges and mining hardware companies.
Bitcoin is controlled by a few people at Bitcoin Core and Blockstream. They reject any improvement they don't agree with, although been just one of the ecosystem players, not economically important neither. They could disappear or be hijacked and jailed into a island, and bitcoin would still keep working. The same with exchanges.
I may be just rambling here, but I think this potential scenario deserves at least some thoughts.
I agree. And your thoughts, although I am disagreeing with them, are providing a new perspective on the ecosystem.
What happened in just a few microseconds is that a new coin appeared and this new coin, apparently, has a market cap comparable to Bitcoin's.
Of course. BitcoinCash is Bitcoin without Segwit, so it is comparable. iPhone8 and iPhone8Plus are comparable also, and that doesn't make the non-Plus version just shit.
BitcoinCash has a smaller ecosystem. Not so many miners, and no so many companies supporting it on their systems, so price should be lower.
Do you see it now? Doesn't this sounds worryingly familiar with central banks printing money out of thin air under the promise of a better economy?
No. Central banks cannot create a new currency.
Actual usage of Bitcoin / Bitcoin Cash / Bitcoin Gold can be assimilated, they're all tradable coins. In a functional way, these Bitcoin clones act like new notes printed by central banks, they create inflation.
Like I said, it's just a scenario, but I think it deserves some thoughts. We're less than 4 months into this new "cloning and printing" strategy and a lot can happen.