Sad Irony
It wasn’t too long ago in 2017 that Bitcoin (BTC) went through a long civil war over the future of its very existence. As a result, Bitcoin Cash (BCH) emerged and provided those with a different vision for the future of “Bitcoin” to grow, develop, and continue in their respective way.
BTC continued its chosen solution for scalability by implementing segregated witness (SegWit) and off-chain applications, such as the Lightning Network, and BCH chose to increase the block size from 1MB to 8MB, which contain the transactional data when using these blockchains.
Fast-forward to the time of writing (November 2018) and BCH now faces a similar situation to what BTC has been through, a decisive hard fork on November 15th, where two ideologies can no longer coexist in the same ecosystem.
Source: https://www.bitcoincash.org/
BCH has gone through numerous successful hard forks over the last year, but the difference this time is that the next one due to happen on November 15th has not managed to gain consensus from the whole community, with two opposing sides (Bitcoin ABC and Bitcoin SV/nChain [Satoshi’s Vision]) causing tensions to escalate.
At the center of the debate and pushing the Bitcoin SV campaign forward is the controversial figure Craig Wright, who “claims” to be the mysterious creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto. However, no evidence of this has been given as of yet.
Wright is also leader of nChain, a “global leader in research and development of Blockchain…”
The leading implementation, Bitcoin ABC, is embraced by the community overall, while also being heavily supported by mining giant Bitmain and popular cryptocurrency personality Roger Ver, of Bitcoin.com.
If you are new to blockchain tech and the crypto sector, it might help to know how Bitcoin Cash emerged and catch up on what the difference between BTC and BCH is and what triggered the community to splinter in the first place.
How many versions of Bitcoin are there?
Is This a Debate of Technology or Ego? Threatening Emails and More!
Source: (01:20)
The arguments began over which upgrades should be included in the updated code of BCH. With a clash of personal opinions and still no consensus reached and just a matter of days before the controversial split, it seems that two versions of BCH will emerge.
In a recent video by Roger Ver, he confirms his loyalty to Bitcoin ABC. He then shows the viewers a screenshot (above) of an email allegedly sent by Wright, threatening to bring Bitcoin Cash to zero!
Video embed. Click here to watch on youtube.com.
Ver admits he may have been “fooled” in the video he bravely uploaded. He also acknowledged the soft fork done on BTC in 2017 at 18:30.
Blockchain Vs. Blockchain and Hashing Power Wars!
Wright also discusses how miners can “LEGALLY kill off” the competing blockchain in a string of tweets aimed at the BCH community. Could this be the prelude to an all-out hashing power war between the two versions of Bitcoin Cash?
According to reports, Bitmain has begun deploying up to 90,000 S9 Antminers ahead of the hard fork. Bitmain supports the Bitcoin ABC implementation and is heavily invested in Bitcoin Cash and cannot afford to lose a war of hashing power.
The allocation of hashing power is aligned in the following manner: Bitcoin ABC’s support consists of BTC.com, AntPool, BTC.top, ViaBTC, and Bitcoin.com, while Bitcoin SV is backed by CoinGeek, BMG, and SBI (Soft Bank Group).
It must be noted that miners can switch blockchains and implementations at their own discretion. Based on profitability or other factors, these fragile alliances may change at any time!
Who Will Support the New Altcoin?
Binance and Coinbase have come out in support of the new cryptocurrency set to emerge on November 15th. Like previous hard fork events, speculators holding the cryptocurrency that are undergoing a hard fork at the time of the network split receive the new cryptocurrency at a ratio of 1:1.
This can sometimes cause the digital asset to appreciate as speculators go into a buying frenzy to receive the newly-created “free” cryptocurrency!
Will This KILL Bitcoin Cash?
From a speculator’s viewpoint, potentially gaining a new cryptocurrency for holding another might seem profitable and boost BCH’s price, but in the long run, it could seriously damage the underlying ecosystem keeping Bitcoin Cash alive.
Will the split kill BCH? It’s unlikely, as each faction of this debate has enough hashing power to keep both networks operating if both sides play nicely in the weeks following.
Bitcoin (BTC) survived its own version of this same situation. In the weeks following, it reached $20,000 and its own hashing power dwarfed any other mineable cryptocurrency in the sector. The true victims of the internal battle within BCH are the community members themselves.
Sentiment is showing favor towards the established version, Bitcoin ABC. Let history be the judge!
As always, I recommend safety first. If these new coins don’t have replay protection, you could put your Bitcoin Cash at risk, and even lose them permanently. Do not give your private seed phrase to any unknown software client, and do research before attempting anything!
Original Article Available HERE