@adamstgbit
There is no cause for concern in any spinoff scenario, from either side, because no one stands to lose any money (unless they proactively take a gamble). No need for pitchforks due to minority/controversial hardfork. Let's walk through a couple scenarios to see this (middle of the night in bed on my phone now so this may be a bit rough-hewn):
Scenario 1) Spinoff gets almost no traction. A negligible number of people sell their BTC to acquire more BUTC, the price change in BTC escapes notice by most people because it's well within normal daily price variation, and most people never even realize they could - for a brief time - get like 1% more BTC by being the counterparties to the few people who are interested in the fork, by selling off their BUTC shares. After that window the spinoff likely dies and for everyone who slept through it the price is right back where it was (not even down by that unnoticeable daily variance amount). Super yawnworthy.
On the off chance it doesn't die but persists within a niche community, eventually everyone who wants to trade gets a chance and that might mean a bunch of BTC holders dump their BUTC for their 1% extra gain in BTC (very soon fading to 0.1%, etc. as the BUTC price spirals down). That's as intended; that's how it gets to be a tiny niche fork after all. Anyone who complains of this 0.01% drag on BTC price is free to sell their BUTC to recover that money themselves. And if you worry of "death by a thousand cuts" due to tons of these tiny coins, note that exchanges would likely have it set up so you could very easily send your stakes in every spinoff for a specific address you own at once to the exchange and sell them all in a snap at market price. No fuss, no muss.
"Okay," you say, "but the pitchforks will really come out when the BTC price change is bigger due to a substantially supported yet still very controversial fork." Well let's see:
Scenario 2) Spinoff gains traction with 20% of holders, BTC price drops up to* 20% in a day. People go, "WTF!?" Actually no, they don't, because such a well-supported spinoff would be well known to every price watcher well in advance. In fact the exact price change might already have been anticipated in the prediction market effectively created by exchanges offering spinoff futures in BTC and BUTC. So no surprises.
But to be extra-charitable and make sure we cover all possible bases, let's suppose somehow the BTC price drops way more than expected. Say by 50%. So for example at today's price of $450 we have a sudden fall of BTC to $225 while BUTC appears at $225 also (though both are likely higher than this*).
But recall the market was already expecting something in the ballpark of a 20% shift, meaning something like BTC falling to $360 while BUTC shows up at $90. In such a case, every exchange, every wallet, every price ticker, every site like Bitcoinity and BitcoinWisdom, every merchant operator like Bitpay and Coinbase, and everyone in the know everywhere is gearing up to display something like the following as the market price:
Bitcoin total price: $450
(BTC$360:BUTC$90)
Or whatever. Maybe a handy pie chart alongside this becomes the norm. Some factions may choose to put the BTC price at the forefront, leaving the total in parentheses, or perhaps the BUTC price. I'll leave that to the interface design experts. Merchants who have no idea will get paid in both by default via Bitpay or whatever if they are too out of the loop to take sides, and even if they choose to be paid in, say, only BTC the wallet software will likely make this process nearly invisible to the user. And to the extent that merchants taking sides did result in friction they of course wouldn't do it until later when the dust settled. Their stake and profits are protected in any case if they just do the default of getting payment in both forks, a procedure wallets would of course be set up to perform by default as well.
Some confusion could happen, but remember people would anticipate this and be getting the word out in reddit and all other communities, news stories, wallet messages, etc. because of the nature of this scenario: it's major, everyone is making necessary preparations in advance if they know there is any significance chance it could be major at all. Done right, the casual user who "just wants to shop" may not even notice.
Investors who support Core may be disheartened that so many people support BU, but if so they are free to sell their BUTC at the click of a button since wallets and exchanges have already geared up for this. And vice versa for BU supporters.
Did you think they will both sell off the other causing a price crash in both? Well, only if they sell for fiat! And why would they? They would sell for their preferred spinoff, either BTC or BUTC. The total remains the same, everyone's purchasing power remains the same unless they chose to gamble or take sides prior to the price ratio stabilizing. If they take sides after the quick fork arbitrage period when the price ratio is likely stable, they also retain the exact same purchasing power.
Still pretty yawnworthy for the casual investor and user, though very exciting for the enthusiast. No pitchforks because no one ever loses money unless they stick their neck out to make a special bet on one side or the other. Core supporters simply lament the support for BU while also being happy they can go their separate ways as an investment. Core supporters will of course believe the next big bubble buy-in will be visited on BTC only while BUTC becomes a forgotten relic, and many of the more diehard supporters will sell their BUTC completely so as to cash in. They make EXTRA money here (on the assumption they are correct), above and beyond what they would have if the spinoff hadn't happened, so far from being angry they are ecstatic to have the opportunity for an "easy 50% increase" in their holdings! Likewise for BU diehards.
Can everyone not see how beautiful this solution is? All parties win (or think they will win).
If not for the censorship on /r/Bitcoin we might have come to convince Core supporters long ago that this is their hot ticket to make money at the expense of BU and Classic supporters (and vice versa). I think anyone on either side who understands this process will be in vigorous support of it, other than those who are worried about confusion and burden on wallet coders (exchanges should be happy as they get a nice cut from the trading; forward-thinking wallet coders should be happy, too, as this makes the role of the wallet a lot more substantial in the user experience since most users don't want to manage all the spinoff components themselves).
*The market is getting the free choice it had been longing for, so the combined value is likely to be higher than before; there may well ironically be a BTC price *rise* as outside investors see Bitcoin finally got its act together and resolved the central goverance issue.
