Guys, guys, guys. Stop bickering over which Bitcoin chain will reign supreme.
Guess what? It doesn't matter.
(For those new to the debate: Bitcoin Cash forked off of Bitcoin on August 1, 2017, citing problems with the way the Bitcoin Core development team was handling problems that led to slow confirmation times and high transaction fees. Afterwards, Bitcoin Cash increased significantly in both price and market cap, spurring a war between Bitcoin maximalists and Bitcoin Cash supporters over which chain was the REAL Bitcoin. On the Bitcoin side, you have people claiming that Bitcoin's market dominance is assured, once the Lightning Networks are fully operational, and that Bitcoin Cash is a centralization scam. On the Bitcoin Cash side, you have people claiming that the BCH protocols are closer to Satoshi's original vision of Bitcoin--even though neither chains match the white paper exactly. Even through the current market-wide correction, this silly war rages on.)
The question is moot.
What does it even mean to be "the REAL Bitcoin?" Does whichever coin has greatest market dominance in two years get the title? What about in five years? Ten?
What about price movements? Will the "Real" Bitcoin always remain higher in value?
Is the "Real" Bitcoin the one that works the best to make transactions?
Is it the one that is the best store of value?
Or is it really about which chain most closely matches the vision of Satoshi?
Who cares?
If market dominance is the determining factor, then it's not really Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash competing, is it? It's Bitcoin, Ripple, Ether, Bitcoin Cash, etc.
If we are judging by which is the best for transactions, then perhaps STEEM is the real Bitcoin.
Only if we are judging by price alone can we determine which is the real Bitcoin, at least for now.
There are hundreds of cryptocurrencies competing in this market. Several of them can do everything that Satoshi envisioned for the original Bitcoin, and more. In the coming years, slick innovations are likely to come along that make Satoshi's original Bitcoin look like an old jalopy in comparison. In an ocean full of cryptos that can do way more than Bitcoin ever could have dreamed, why should we care which is the real Bitcoin, other than as a matter of historical curiosity?
In my opinion, our takeaway from the Bitcoin Cash fork should NOT be to find out which chain is the REAL BITCOIN. Instead:
Wow! In the new frontier of money, if some people don't like the way a currency is being run, they can simply fork off of it and form a new currency with rules they prefer. This is amazing for competition and innovation, and even if the fork option gets overused a little, it's certainly a lot better than central bank controlled fiat, where one out-of-touch authority controls all the money within given arbitrary borders, and no one else has any say about it. The more choices, the better!
