Xinxi Wang, a Litecoin developer and director of the litecoin foundation, stated last week, according to a translation obtained by Trustnodes:

“Blockstream is trash. Its business model is completely unreliable. They try to control the development of bitcoin code. Maybe they’ll end up more or less like Sun company.”

Sun Microsystems, which developed Java, was unable to keep up with changes in the market, falling into irrelevance and eventually being acquired by Oracle.

Wang’s comments are somewhat surprising because litecoin developers have been very supportive of segwit, a protocol upgrade largely developed by Blockstream employees Pieter Wuille and Gregory Maxwell.

The currency is undergoing the activation process with a hashrate battle seemingly developing as the required 75% was briefly achieved, but fell yesterday to around 60% after rumors that Antpool had brought on new hashrate to prevent its activation.

In response, calls for a flag-day soft-fork are seemingly increasing, but such threat is likely a bluff as its use in a contentious setting would probably break the currency into many coins which may send its price down tanking.

Interestingly, Wang Chun, F2Pool’s co-founder, has recently decided to become far more vocal, comparing Bitcoin Core to Saddam Hussain, the ruthless dictator of Iraq. He further joked that litecoin doesn’t have any developers, but at the same time Chun has decided to support segwit both in litecoin and bitcoin.

ViaBTC came out today to re-iterate their opposition to segwit in bitcoin, suggesting that much now rests on around 30% of miners who have not yet decided whether to support segwit or Bitcoin Unlimited.

That means both bitcoin and litecoin remain in a state of uncertainty. Meanwhile, ethereum rose above $50, adding around $1 billion to their market cap in the past few days.

The currency enjoys a happy and united community with clear leadership and a likewise clear roadmap with all looking to track its progress. Vitalik Buterin told them a hybrid PoS and PoW upgrade will go live soon, with full PoS estimated for next year.

Thereafter, they are to work towards the grand prize in this space, sharding, a protocol upgrade that may allow for as good as unlimited on-chain scalability. We shouldn’t expect it all to go smoothly, but unlike bitcoin or litecoin they actually have a governance model.

It’s very simple and has been pretty effective so far. If the matter is not contentious, then at block x activate y upgrade through a hardfork. If the matter is contentious, then hold token vote and miners vote. If in favor, flag-day hardfork. If not in favor, then no upgrade.

They’ve been assisted by a stroke of luck. Cornell researchers revealed last year that ethereum cannot soft-fork as there are attack vectors. All upgrades, therefore, are through a hardfork. Which means that a clean chain split can happen, providing dissenters the freedom to continue as they please. Instead of forcing all as is often the case in a soft-fork.

The result has been a community which moves fast and can actually make decisions. In contrast, bitcoin remains stuck in 2015 and now has seemingly decided to bring its little brother in the time-loop as well. Leading to a back and forth in both bitcoin and litecoin, in a somewhat frustrating drama-comedy that some wonder when will it all get boring.