For those of you closely monitoring crypto markets, the fight between the BCash and Bitcoin supporters is not a new thing.
For those of you who are not that familiar with the topic, here is a short summary:
Some of the members of the Bitcoin community, some mining companies and influential individuals from the Bitcoin community, decided that they will create their own currency which will resemble Bitcoin.
They called it Bitcoin cash.
In the long run the idea was (and still is) to overtake Bitcoin, it's name, it's brand and eventually, at some point, represent Bitcoin cash as a true Bitcoin. This means, obviously, an end of Bitcoin - decentralized currency and the beginning BCash centralized currency controlled by few.
This is the long story short.
Why are they doing this? It's simple. As always in human history, it is about the interest of the few. As always in history, it is about the greed and, as Nietzsche put, it is about the will to power (der Wille zur Macht).
Naturally, this big money's struggle to overtake Bitcoin is strongly supported by:
- Mainstream media, such as CNBC,
- Big companies such as Coinbase,
- Big pools such as AntPool and ViaBTC pool and some others.
- Influential individuals such as Roger Ver and Emil Oldenburg who were, initially, part of the Bitcoin community
As you may have concluded by now, unlike Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash is basically a centralized currency. This means that it is under the control of one lobby or group of companies/individuals/pools. It is under the control of big money. Some may claim that it is not centralized yet, but, without going into too much technical details, let's just say that it's bigger block size makes it, least to say, susceptible to centralization, easy to centralize. The only question remains: Who would, and why lobby for such currency? Of course, those who want to have it under their control. If you believe that those who lobby for BCash do it in the best interest for users, then you probably believe that big banks, corporations and governments are also working in the best interest their people/users.
Now, on the other side we have a truly decentralized currency - Bitcoin which is supported by original Bitcoin community: developers, miners, supporters and users who are true to the original idea of Bitcoin being a currency which can not be controlled by any group or lobby, especially not big investors.
People supporting the true Bitcoin are also known as hodl-ers. Long story, but basically, these are long term Bitcoin holders who are not selling their Bitcoins just because it's price goes down on the markets. They are supporting the original idea behind the Bitcoin: a true decentralized currency which will, eventually, make banks obsolete. The idea of making it possible to conduct all economic activities without banks and their fiat money. Financial freedom from centrally controlled and manipulated fiat currencies. This is what the idea behind Bitcoin is.
Of course, being a new technology, like any other new technology, Bitcoin has it's "child diseases". For instance, due to it's block size it became more and more expensive and time consuming to make Bitcoin transactions. And this is what BCash supporters use as their main weapon against Bitcoin.
However, bigger block size which results in faster and cheaper transactions is just not good enough reason to handover Bitcoin to several individuals backed up by big money. Bitcoin needs to evolve and Bitcoin Core developers are constantly working on Bitcoin algorithm improvement. Bitcoin will become faster and cheaper to transact. (Look up: Lightning network https://lightning.network/ ). This will be done, but not at the cost of decentralization.
If you check the markets you will see a high surge o BCash and decline of Bitcoin in last few days, especially in the last 24 hours.
Here is how attack on Bitcoin took place (developments in last 24 hours):
Big money investors who acquired substantial amount of Bitcoin in the last few months, started dumping Bitcoin which led to it's decline which is already enough to raise some eyebrows of recent/new Bitcoin adopters. Some started to panic and sold their recently acquired Bitcoins.
One of the influential early Bitcoin community member, Emil Oldenburg, publicly announced that he is ditching all his Bitcoins for BCash. (Which was widely covered by mainstream media.)
Simultaneously, few hours ago, one of the biggest digital currency exchange platforms, a company called Coinbase added Bitcoin Cash to their list of tradable crypto-currencies giving, this way, additional legitimacy to BCash.
At the same time BCash is getting a huge coverage (and appraisal) by mainstream media such as CNBC where where the push the narration of BCash being a better cryptocurrency option than Bitcoin.
Big mining pools (read: again big companies) started pushing for BCash stronger then ever before, doing what they can to redirect the mining power (hashpower) from Bitcoin to BCash, making Bitcoin even slower and more expensive to transact.
Basically, the attack on Bitcoin is orchestrated through these five main vectors and the battle is raging on as I am writing this.
People who don't know much about the background of this story will eventually believe that BCash is Bitcoin, they will not see what's really going on, how fooled they are, they will not see that BCash is killing the very idea of Bitcoin, they will not see that BCash is a road to centralization and privatization of crypto-currency which basically means if BCash wins - central monetary system wins - 1% wins.
However, I am optimistic. There are too many of us who see through the BCash trap. If Bitcoin got this far in the last nine years, this means that there are already too many people who understand what Bitcoin really is about. Bitcoin Core developers will continue to improve Bitcoin, loyal Bitcoin miners will continue to mine Bitcoin and those who really believe in Bitcoin and want to see banks go away, will do their best to use Bitcoin once this battle is over and the markets settle down.
There are just too many of us.
And finally, as I write this, the legendary words of Winston Churchill resound in my head:
"[..] we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender [..]"
and if I may add: We shall #hodl the ground - no matter what.