If you have been paying attention over the weekend you may have seen a suddenly takeover of Social Media by posts about Bitcoin Cash. There are a lot of theories being passed around about what exactly has been going, but I'm going to refrain from baseless speculation here. I want to talk about what we need to take away as a community from this.
At its root we have two competing factions, those that see the future of Bitcoin as a store of value first and foremost and those that see it as a currency. Both camps embrace both functions , however Bitcoin prioritizes being a store of value secure from the hands of governments and thieves while Bitcoin Cash is arguing for its function as a usable currency.
While I'm not going to engage in meaningless speculation, I will say that the posts I spent the weekend reading from the Bitcoin Cash camp were vitriolic and attack Bitcoin's function as a currency. Criticizing Bitcoin's function as a currency is like criticizing a Calculus student for their Spelling. Sure, proper spelling matters but not as much when you are taking a Calculus test. It's criticizing a function of a technology which is NOT its primary function. Yes, Bitcoin functions as a means of exchange and as a currency, and it has never stopped functioning in such a manner. However, what gives Bitcoin it's value is an ancient problem : Once I acquire resources/wealth, how do I keep that wealth safe from governments/thieves/loss?
What gives Bitcoin it's value is that it offers an option for anyone, anywhere to keep their wealth safe. It is actually REVOLUTIONARY as a store of value. Gold can be easily stolen and is cumbersome to store. Bank accounts can be frozen. Land be taken in a political coup. Since the dawn of political order in human civilization, people have been trying to keep their assets safe from those who had the power to seize it. Bitcoin solves this problem, but ONLY if it actually upholds this promise.
If the market thought that whichever Cryptocurrency which functioned as the best means of exchange ( cheap transaction fees, short times to send), Bitcoin would have lost its lead a long time ago to one of the many Cryptocurrencies which performs this function better. There have been better digital currencies for years, and yet Bitcoin is still number one, why?
What truly gives Bitcoin its value is that so far Bitcoin has proved to be a reliable and secure store of value. It has proven over time to be resistant to intervention and to be the first piece of true digital property.
However, while I think the arguments presented by the Bitcoin Cash community are targeting a secondary function of Bitcoin, the events of this weekend do contain something which I think the Bitcoin Community needs to address.
During the peak of the social media posting, many miners switched over to mine Bitcoin Cash and caused a huge backlog of Bitcoin transactions to be unable to process. This is a serious issue. This should not be taken lightly. If Bitcoin's value truly comes from its function as a store of value, than the loss of network function is a threat to that security.
Bitcoin can eschew its currency functions until the time when layers are added unto the decentralized blockchain to improve its function, that's fine. However, if Bitcoin wants to function as a True Decentralized Digital Store of Value it must be able to withstand assault. Imagine for a moment that the whole world used Bitcoin as a store of value ( not a currency for daily transactions, neither Bitcoin nor Bitcoin Cash could actually be used for a Global Daily Currency). A global store of wealth cannot say " Oh, I'm sorry we can't process your transaction because our network is not going to be functional for an indeterminate period of time". A global store of wealth needs to be resistant to any interruptions in it's function.
Bitcoin first and foremost needs to demonstrate to the Global Audience that is truly secure, and it has been doing this for years. However, I want to highlight it is not the blocksize debate we need to be concerned about as a community, so far as we are implementing functional and ethical off-chain services. As a community we need to be focused on demonstrating the stability and security of Bitcoin.
We can say the fees don't matter and the transaction speed doesn't matter, but if we choose this route as a community we absolutely must focus completely on being as resistant to manipulation, interruption , and attack as possible. We also need to not let the Public have any confusion over which Bitcoin is Bitcoin. It's essential that people are very clear on which Bitcoin is the true store of value, because THAT is what gives Bitcoin value. Bitcoin has value because it is Bitcoin.
Let's not turn away from our own work as a community, lets not turn away from really making Bitcoin into what it can be. Bitcoin is an evolving, living organism, it's allowed to change and even grow apart from the original vision of Satoshi. Now that we have other Cryptocurrencies which function as currencies, we can focus more on being the standard for a store of value.
I hope the events of this weekend can foster some true dialogue in the community on what direction Bitcoin needs to move in. I hope the events of this weekend can cause us to form a better defense against another such attack.
I know the one thing we shouldn't do is totally ignore this, anytime a weakness is exposed it's important that we work to find a solution to that vector of attack.
If we are going to argue for Bitcoin's function as a store of value, then the community should get out there and write about WHY it has to be a store of value first and foremost. Bitcoin may not be centralized and no one single person may have the authority to say WHAT Bitcoin is, however the only way we can find out what we will use Bitcoin for is if people with a view and a vision for the technology express that view!
I was surprised to see a lack of cohesive response to the criticisms of the Bitcoin Cash posts. The technology stands accused of being worthless for its lack of function of a currency, and I think its the responsibility of the Bitcoin community to communicate to the larger public who they expect to adopt Bitcoin on why its primary role is as a store of value.
Steven
Blockchain Visions