Bitcoin Cash is like fiat money, argues Bitcoin core programmer and educator Jimmy Song in a recent blog post. The article was posted just before Song took on Bitcoin.com CEO Roger Ver in an infamous and ill-fated debate aboard a Blockchain cruise.
BTC vs. BCH Debate
Since last year’s hard fork of Bitcoin that resulted in the creation of Bitcoin Cash, there have been claims put forward by both camps that their version of the coin is the real Bitcoin. Both sides have argued in support of their claim.
An exciting – albeit brief – debate took place last month aboard a Blockchain cruise between Jimmy Song, a Bitcoin core developer and educator and Roger Ver, CEO of Bitcoin.com. The debate, which is reported to have been a very heated one, was preceded by Song expressing his arguments in favor of Bitcoin on his blog post.
What led to the forking of Bitcoin last year was the disagreement around the solution to the scalability issue. While the core developers advocated implementing SegWit (Segregated Witness, a solution that puts the unnecessary details in side chains) and Lightning Network to address the problem, the Bitcoin Cash camp was in favor of increasing the block size from 1 MB to 8 MB. Since both sides could not reach a consensus, the BCH camp went ahead and forked the blockchain and created Bitcoin Cash.
However, it is believed that there was more to the fork than just ideological differences. Apparently, the Chinese miners led by Bitmain (who controls close to 42% of the hashrate on the bitcoin network) had a vested interest in forking the chain.
Song’s Arguments
Song argues that while Bitcoin is “classically liberal, anarcho-capitalist and Austrian,” while Bitcoin Cash is “interventionist, paternalistic and Keynesian befitting its corporate roots.”
Song says:
BTC is all about self-sovereignty over your own money. There is no central authority, each individual runs what software they want, what features are utilized and which use cases are prioritized. In other words, bitcoin is decentralized. Bitcoin is the money for people who want property rights over their own money.
The noted Bitcoin advocate then compared Bitcoin Cash to fiat currency, which he defined as having been created by:
- a command or act of will that creates something without or as if without further effort;
- an authoritative determination; or
- an authoritative or arbitrary order
According to Song:
BCH rose out of Bitmain. BCH is centralized with an elite group that determines a roadmap. They determine what will be implemented and what will not through authoritarian hard forks. These are forced upgrades, decided by a central authority, that everyone must follow to stay on BCH. These hard forks mean that at a minimum, economic incentives change.
He adds:
The method of payment use case has been subsidized by central authorities through large blocks, despite all market signals to the contrary. The smart contract use case has also been subsidized by central authorities, despite there being very little utility or demand for such a thing. BCH is very much paternalistic.
Calling Bitmain the “central bank of BCH,” Song further argues that BCH has no reason for its existence as a lot of altcoins do what Bitcoin Cash does. There are close to 74 different hard forks of Bitcoin with some even better than BCH as methods of payment.
Jimmy Song in his blog post does indeed present some convincing arguments in favor of Bitcoin. With the scalability issue addressed in no small extent by SegWit and with the ongoing Lightning Network implementation, there really seems no valid reason for the existence of Bitcoin Cash.
Which in your opinion is the real Bitcoin, BTC or BCH? Let us know in the comments below.
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