The Bitcoin Cash “civil war”, as it has been called by many, has finally come to an end but not without having done some damage.
White Flags Out
The Bitcoin Cash drama and the accompanying slugfest has finally begun to calm down. The differences between the two different camps over what changes to push as part of the regular hard fork led to the bitter acrimony displayed over social media.
Both camps as reported earlier went ahead and split the BCH blockchain into two chains on 15th of this month. The days succeeding the fork saw both sides trying to claim stake over the network and the ‘Bitcoin Cash’ name by engaging in a hash war.
In the process, they dragged the entire crypto market down to levels not seen in the last 13 months. Finally, common sense has prevailed, and the Bitcoin SV faction has thrown in the towel, according to Bloomberg. The Craig Wright led group was on the losing end with majority hash rate pointing to the Bitcoin ABC version of the chain.
Both Chains Will Co-exist
Calvin Ayre, representing the Bitcoin SV group in a web post on Friday said that the SV followers no longer wanted the name Bitcoin Cash and would continue to support their own version of the network.
The other group led by Roger Ver also called Bitcoin Jesus, and Bitmain, the largest manufacturer of mining equipment will continue to support the Bitcoin ABC version which will retain the Bitcoin Cash name and ticker BCH.
According to the article, BCH ABC won a race known as Nakamoto Consensus in which miners voted for the chain that they intend to support.
Ayre wrote:
This is very convenient as the definition of winning is fundamentally different to each side so there is a win-win solution here.
Impact on Investors
The holders of Bitcoin Cash before the hard fork should get an equal amount of both coins in their respective wallets provided that the exchange supports both versions.
In the past holders have benefited from such splits as prices of significant blockchains generally are known to appreciate.
Some mining pools, like CoinGeek, have decided to support SV going forward and not BCH.
Ayre said:
We have a clearly defined path, and this is now ready for implementation. Our definition of winning is SV existing, which was not what ABC wanted, and we are already moving on to grow the ecosystem.
While the investors can heave a sigh of relief, however, the damage caused to the crypto market and Bitcoin, in particular, may take a while to repair.
Are you happy now that the dust is settling over the month-long fight over the BCH hard fork? Let us know in the comments below.
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