The Bitcoin Cash hash war will conclude tomorrow, though no one can predict the outcome with certainty. As it stands, Craig Wright appears to have seized momentum. Wright and his backers command the m
The Bitcoin Cash hash war will conclude tomorrow, though no one can predict the outcome with certainty. As it stands, Craig Wright appears to have seized momentum. Wright and his backers command the majority of hashing power and look positioned to set the terms after the scheduled fork. What transpires afterward remains murky. Bitcoin Cash could remain undivided under Wright's control, or it may fragment into two separate chains, with BitcoinABC supporters operating a minority version.
Until recently, Wright's Bitcoin SV pools lacked sufficient hash power to guarantee dominance post-fork. That changed this week. Wright and allied pools now command over 65% of hashing power on the Bitcoin Cash network. Jihan Wu, Roger Ver, and the BitcoinABC faction face a narrow window to reverse this. Wu wields substantial hash power through Bitmain, the planet's largest maker of mining equipment. Bitmain operates mining pools for both Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin. They could move hash power from Bitcoin to Bitcoin Cash mining. Bitcoin mining generates 21% higher returns than Bitcoin Cash mining, however, so Bitmain would need to compensate its miners for the lost profits. The cost would be substantial.
Roger Ver's Bitcoin.com holds another potential avenue. That platform could divert hash power from its Bitcoin pool to boost the Bitcoin Cash side. But again, the financial hit would be real. Bitcoin.com has indicated willingness to do exactly this, though questions linger about whether this would be legal and if the move might trigger miner defections.
Wright, who asserts he created Bitcoin, plagiarized from academic sources, fabricates stories about his yachts, somehow believes a 56k modem downloads 32-megabyte blocks in under ten minutes, and operates a patent litigation enterprise, will command Bitcoin Cash unless wealthy players intervene. And credit where due: this reversal stuns. One week back, his fork appeared destined for collapse. The expectation held that Bitcoin Cash would shed its most divisive figure. Instead, Wright stands poised to govern the majority fork, claiming the whole thing.
The surprise deepens when you consider that Bitcoin Cash's major participants have remained neutral or declared support for BitcoinABC. Nobody can be certain what happens next. Wright may have concealed his true hash reserves, and his competitors may be doing the same.
I don't hold conviction in Bitcoin Cash. My only BCH exposure came from the original split, which I later sold. Watching this dispute has been captivating nonetheless. The conflict shows what unfolds when a small group of holders wields too much power in a digital currency. Wright announced himself as Satoshi, and most prominent Bitcoin Cash figures believed the claim. Now that he departed from consensus, they cannot reclaim the credibility they extended. Some people are convinced Wright is the authentic Satoshi and will follow him regardless. They ignore what physics tells them and dismiss what developers warn them.
With Wright threatening to attack any chain bearing a different name, he demonstrates the peril of such concentration. A single actor making unilateral rules and imposing them on others negates any genuine decentralization in Bitcoin Cash.
Wright and Coingeek proprietor Calvin Ayre might harm themselves with this approach. They only demonstrate that Bitcoin Cash carries flaws, and their share of total hashing power will contract once miners recognize reduced returns from their pools. They need complete success to win. BitcoinSV must become the unambiguous Bitcoin Cash chain. All other versions must either survive on their own or perish. Anything else accelerates Bitcoin Cash toward ruin. Perhaps that suits him fine. If he cannot govern all of crypto, maybe he settles for ruling a wasteland.
