I posted this to /r/BitcoinMarkets but I thought I might post it here as well.
Currently 0 mined blocks have voted for XT.
If it ever gets close to even 50%, many things can happen that would reshape the game completely.
For instance:
- Core could start boycotting XT by not relying to them and/or not relying from them.
- Core could appropriate the version string of XT, making it impossible to know how much they are progressing and a losing bet to actually execute the fork.
This kind of node war if the factions were sizeable would make it very risky to transact at all - balances in new addresses could end up vanishing. Usability of the system would plummet.
Note that any disagreement between the network and the biggest economic actors - mainly the exchanges at this point, "wallet services" maybe - would mean BTC plummets. Hard. And so would confidence.
It's a risky game to play.
PS: I consider this attempt at takeover about as foul as it gets. The equivalent of repeating a referendum until a yes is obtained: the reasonable reaction to this is actively blocking said "referendum". There was a fair play alternative which is voting through coinbase scriptSig like plain 8MBers are doing, or like BIP 100 proposes for dynamic adjustment. Once a majority is obtained in this way, devs have to react or if they don't then this sort of foul play would be justified. But this wasn't the case.