If you held physical ETH pre-fork, you are indifferent to price ratio of ETH vs. ETC as you hold both. However, you do care about the total market cap of ETH + ETC.
If ETC sticks around, it will start to spread Fear Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) amongst Ethereum’s corporate cheerleaders. The value of Ethereum emanates from large multinational technology and financial firms’ interest and usage of the protocol.
These companies are very fearful. Senior managers are fearful that any application built on Ethereum won’t last. They are also fearful of public perception of their company’s adoption of the protocol. That is the key reason why the foundation is quick to point out that Ether is not a currency. Banks wouldn’t touch the protocol otherwise.
The DAO bailout signified that the foundation will bail out an application if the financial impact is large enough. That is comforting to large financial institutions because that is necessary in the Too Big To Fail business model.
If ETC is still around in a month and the hashing power increases, many uncomfortable questions will be asked. Will miners switch allegiance en masse to ETC if that is what the community truly wants? Should an organisation be building services on top of a protocol where immutability of the code is more valued than intent?
As FUD spreads, the total market cap of ETH + ETC will decline. Many ETH holders are sitting on large gains since the initial coin offering (ICO). They will begin dumping ETH if it becomes clear that the large corporate backers are getting cold feet.
Given the exchange uptake of ETC, the trade is to go long ETC vs. short ETH using the BitMEX ETC24H and ETHXBT products. This trade can be accomplished using only Bitcoin as margin. You are essentially long FUD, and given the current environment it’s not a bad place to be.