Bcore versus Bcash? Who has the right to be Bitcoin? Somebody runs the site bitcoin.org and another has bitcoin.com and now that mommy and daddy divorced we don’t know where home is going to be.
More than that, the whole thing is a witch hunt, from both sides. Bcash is getting hit as a brand thief and a rich dudes’ entourage hub, while the claim that many of the thought leaders in the Bcore side are bankers is also being levied. What’s true?
Are the banks taking over Bitcoin Core? Sure looks like it. We all loved the days when basement dwelling geeks were hitting it rich and getting their lambo from this digital pizza money, but those days are over. Billionaires can see what is going on in the crypto world and they want to take it over. We knew this would happen eventually, but have they already gained control? Well, let’s look at how Bitcoin Core wants to direct the Bitcoin technology.
Bitcoin is the virtual gold of the world. Who does that benefit? Mostly rich people, like bankers. Was that the idea for Bitcoin originally? No, Satoshi was thinking of a cash system and not gold. Does that mean that Bitcoin has been hijacked? Maybe…
Bitcoin Cash aims to bring back to life the original concept of Bitcoin and bring it in line with Satoshi’s world cash manifesto. In essence, Bitcoin Cash is Bitcoin Classic in the same sense that Ethereum Classic chose not to follow along with Vitalik when he decided to rewind the chain, erasing a section of history.
Bcore has an interesting argument though, that in order to have the speed of cash the Bcash team had to sacrifice a measure of decentralization. The subject is complicated with one side saying one thing and the other side saying another thing, but it might not be as decentralized. But is Bitcoin Core decentralized?
The system might seem decentralized, but there are outside pressures not within the network that can act as a central force. Aren’t you sick of software and financial corporations constantly “updating” the agreements with you? Of course you aren’t going to read the changes! You and I are just going to hope some nitpicking blogger will write something if anything in the new policy is really bad. Well, blockchain developing teams and miner voting can do the same thing to a blockchain. Through a series of soft forks one day you might find the blockchain that once was your unbanking oasis has turned into your bank again! Until soft forks and hard forks become a 1 vote per 1 human being decision centralization is the system we have. This is why I am very interested in what I am hearing about Cardano, but the network-based voting system will only work if you tracked votes to human and not votes to coins, because that’s just technologically fancy aristocracy.
Another key point is branding, Bcore claims that Bcash is hijacking the brand name and the miners. But how can either side own these two things? No one in the Bitcoin core is Satoshi, if anyone has any real right to the brand it is that guy/guys/gals. Bitcoin is opensource technology available to anyone to download and fork it however they want, so in that sense, every “altcoin” is Bitcoin. The Bitcoin brand belongs to everyone and no one. However, should we say that Bitcoin Core is the original and should be “Bitcoin”? Well, why would they be?
Bcore’s goal is not the goal Bitcoin originally had, which was to be cash rather than a stored gold. Bitcoin was suppose to be the average joe’s money but many of Bcore argue that we don’t need to stick to Satoshi’s original vision. Okay, technically we don’t need to do that, but creating a project or shifting a project to a new goal makes you a new project. Logically, this would mean that Bcore isn’t Bitcoin, because they dropped the Bitcoin objective. Bcash, however, currently is aiming for that vision, and as hated as he may be, Craig Wright seems to be determined to keep it in that direction. So why wouldn’t they be the true Bitcoin or Bitcoin Classic? Ultimately, aren’t all the forked projects Bitcoin, and yet not?
Is anything truly Bitcoin today? Bitcoin may actually be dead, but from it many great things have come to life. I see Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin Cash and whatever has branched off from Bitcoin as not Bitcoin but a part of it. Together, all the blockchains are features of the whole body that makes up the Bitcoin space. We often just say blockchain space, but all these concepts stem from Satoshi’s vision of a Bitcoin.
Why do you need more than one kind of blockchain in your life? Every blockchain serves a different role. Bcore is the digital gold of the internet, and serves a very valuable role. Have the banks snuck in? Yeah, probably, but we should have expected that to happen, in fact, by the banks entering the space it will only make it more valuable and help us get our lambos. What we should not allow is for the banks to claim the Bitcoin brand, because that belongs to the people, to everyone. Don’t believe in a blockchain, believe in the overall technology.
Stash vs. Cash?
We can benefit from having both Bcore and Bcash. Bcore is a savings, and if we use it like that it’s a wonderful platform with great security. Do we need the cash to be as secure? No, not really, and for that reason we should probably have Bcash for spending money and business operations. Even if it isn’t AS secure (which is debatable), that just wouldn’t matter because it is a mitigated risk.
However, in the current state, decentralized is not real. We talk about it and dream about it, but it isn’t here yet by any of the current blockchains. Why is that? Because developers, miners and stakers have more influence than the average joe and there is nothing we can do about that today.