Is there a reason a lot of these cryptocurrencies have suddenly started to skyrocket all at once?
1. BTC has been increasingly acting unstably: transactions cost a lot and take a long time to confirm. The BTC core development team has proven itself incompetent and unable to handle the situation properly. 2. In Litecoin's case: its activation of Segwit may attract BTC core and other BTC enthusiasts. 3. Ethereum's recovery from DAO hack. I personally think the swift hard fork in this scenario was a great call, and…
They have nefariously manipulated media communications for years to fool people into only accepting a soft fork because they've convinced people a soft fork is somehow safer and any hard fork is automatically contentious. As long as a hard fork is never initiated, they retain write access to the github repo and therefore maintain control of the "default" Bitcoin client. And as long as Greg Maxwell is in charge, he can continue to receive funding for his startup (blockstream).
But yea, crippling layer 1 intentionally and misleading people for their own benefit is incredibly fucked up.