The mining pools BMG Pool and Coingeek have been controlling almost 50% of the hash rate of Bitcoin Cash (BCH) during the last 7 days.
According to the data of Coin Dance, these two pools are those that on average have maintained a domain of more than 44% of the hashrate of Bitcoin Cash during the last week, with peaks that have reached 58%.
On this, the portal Trustnodes published an information this September 17, where they emphasize that control by these two mining groups may continue to increase in the face of a bifurcation of the BCH network. This could happen as of November 15 and would divide the Bitcoin Cash blockchain into three chains. The bifurcation would occur because two proposed updates are incompatible with each other: Bitcoin SV and Bitcoin ABC 0.18.0.
Although it is indicated that the two pools that control the hashrate of BCH have different operators, the publication presumes that there is closeness between the Australian Craight Wright, owner of BMG Pool, and Calvin Ayre, founder of Coingeek, which represents a possible risk for the net.
As an immediate consequence of this situation, mention is made of the centralization of the power of mining in Bitcoin Cash by virtue of the increased control by both groups. It is inferred, therefore, that a potential attack of 51% could be at stake, as well as a search for demonstration of power by the two pools, according to the source.
In this regard, it should be noted that Wright and the developers of nChain, his company, and Coingeek support the proposal of Bitcoin SV; which seeks to bring the network back to what they consider to be "the original vision of Satoshi Nakamoto." While Bitcoin ABC, with its update, aims to add improvements regarding the programming language of the Bitcoin Cash protocol and the validation of messages from outside the blockchain. This shows that both initiatives look in opposite directions.
Given this, the publication states that, after the bifurcation of its network, there would be 3 versions of the Bitcoin Cash blockchain: a version derived from BitcoinSV's proposal (from Wright's group), another from the Bitcoin ABC proposal, and a third version that would not adopt any of the two proposed updates.
Change Houses prepare for forced bifurcation
The publication that is being referenced also ensures that, if this situation continues in the Bitcoin Cash network, the exchange offices will probably begin to increase the confirmation requirements for transactions with BCH. To which is added the possibility that they decide to freeze the withdrawals and deposits of this cryptocurrency, at least 24 hours before and 24 hours after the date indicated for the fork.
In that sense, the Coinsquare exchange house is already sending alerts to its users via email. They inform that they are aware of the debate, so, before the division, they will follow the procedure determined by the Nakamoto Consensus described in the Bitcoin white paper. This Consensus establishes that the tasks associated with the shortest chain must be migrated to the new symbol to be quoted. In this way, the cards associated with the longest chain will continue to operate without interruption, while those associated with the shorter chain will be migrated.
The email adds that the exact details that will surround the exchanges on the Coinsquare platform from this event will be provided in a timely manner, depending on the closeness of the network's branching date.
In this way, the results of this division will make the BCH community live a situation similar to that generated after the Bitcoin hardfork that gave rise to it. The new projects would have to define which of them will retain the name Bitcoin Cash and what the new chain will be called, what measures they will take to avoid double-spending attacks, which miners will support each chain, as well as the exchange houses and other services that will support to these new cryptoactives.