This actually happened to Ethereum. They ended up forking the blockchain to Ethereum and Ethereum Classic.
The fork happened because the community decided the smart contract in question was important enough to the survival of Ethereum that it'd be worth essentially backing out the contract (in a roundabout way)
It's* also worth noting that currencies like Ethereum actually fork all the time. The only worthwhile ones are the forks with mass support, which in Eth's case is usually the latest one supported by the foundation/Vitalik and in Bitcoin's case are Core and Cash (the forks supported by Blockstream and the community fork centered around scaling the block limit, respectively)
Agree with the article title, but the 'fiat' in question is community fiat.