Bitcoin Cash hard fork looking likely for November

Alex Lielacher 24 Oct 2018 11:00 UTC

Bitcoin CashHardforkCraig WrightSatoshi Vision

Discussions over the fate of Bitcoin Cash have seen its community picking sides between two opposing camps, with tension mounting as November 15th draws closer.

After the decision to implement a 'pre-consensus' protocol in a long scheduled software upgrade to Bitcoin Cash on November the 15th, its community is split and a hard fork that could see the digital currency split into two separate chains appears increasingly likely

A taste of your own medicine?

A hard fork refers to the changing of the underlying software in a blockchain, which can lead to the formation of two different blockchains if not all stakeholders agree to the changes. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) came into being as a result of a hard fork from its parent chain, Bitcoin (BTC) in 2017.

Prior to the August 2017 hard fork which created it, supporters of Bitcoin Cash were vocal proponents of the right to split from a parent chain in the name of democracy. They believed that the solution to Bitcoin's scaling problems lay in a larger block size. Following a lack of consensus in the Bitcoin community, a number of people initiated the hard fork and created Bitcoin Cash.

Due to the circumstances that resulted in the creation of the altcoin, the irony of Bitcoin Cash's forking troubles is not lost on its community. One of the leading voices in the BCH community, Roger Ver, was one of the most vocal supporters of the August 2017 hard fork. While he has yet to announce which of the two opposing BCH camps he is supporting, Ver has stated that supporters of each camp should respect the freedoms of their opponents, even if that means a hard fork is eventually initiated.

Speaking on an episode of Bitcoin Cash News Ver stated: "If it wasn't for those people willing to dissent with the minority hash rate, Bitcoin Cash would never exist." He also does not seem as concerned with the upcoming hard fork. Speaking to Bloomberg, Ver emphatically stated: "I don't think the differences are big enough currently to warrant a split."

While the BCH frontman attempts to showcase a united front for the world, his community continues its feuding. The two camps are unified behind different proposed software upgrades. The two warring factions are the Satoshi Vision group and the ABC camp. Both camps are backed by mining heavyweights and leading Bitcoin Cash developers.

The ABC proposal

In July, Bitcoin Cash developer Amaury Sechet published a post announcing the decision to include a new software alteration to a planned upgrade. The November 15 date had long been in the roadmap of the altcoin.

However, following Sechet's post, tensions began to rise. The developer intimated that a new transaction ordering protocol would be included in the upgrade. Sechet's alteration involves the idea of pre-consensus. He defines it as "a set of technologies allowing network participants to agree as much as possible on what the next block is going to look like."

While Sechet maintains that pre-consensus is designed to further strengthen the Bitcoin Cash network, he has been met with both strong support and opposition.

Mining giant Bitmain supports the ABC upgrade. Seeing as Bitmain is reported to be a major holder of BCH, this is a major lynchpin for the ABC camp towards them gaining superiority in the debate.

Craig Wright's 'Satoshi Vision'

Following Bitmain's support of the proposed ABC proposal, controversial figure Craig S. Wright started to express his displeasure with the decision. The self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto became a major voice in the BCH community once he threw his weight behind its creation and pronounced it to be the 'real' Bitcoin.

Wright's displeasure was rooted in the Bitmain Wormhole Partnership. This is an initiative launched in August, which conferred Bitmain with the powers to burn BCH tokens as part of its BCH-based token creation framework. Bitmain maintains that it does this to protect the value of the digital currency.

However, Wright believes this is wrong — saying: "Bitcoin is BCH without WHC." WHC is the denomination of the wormhole tokens used to burn BCH tokens.

As a response to the ABC proposal, Wright released his own paper called "Satoshi Vision". The protocol, as its name suggests, involves using the original specifications outlined by Nakamoto in his Bitcoin whitepaper. The only difference to these specifications would be a much larger block size. Published by nChain, the Satoshi Vision proposal suggests a 128MB block size for the network.

The Satoshi Vision camp is supported by CoinGeek — another mining giant that is heavily involved in the Bitcoin Cash community. The Calvin Ayre-led company has thrown its support behind the SV protocol partly due to its distrust of its competitor Bitmain. Ayre believes the majority of the community echoes this sentiment saying: We do not believe miners will approve Bitmain's reckless direction."

Both parties have been trading accusations, especially on social media, with each camp believing they are the true BCH and the opposite camp is attempting to exert undue influence.

Bitmain co-founder Jihan Wu claimed: "SBI threaten to attack BCH with their hashing power, to help CSW control BCH. They are bad people, and they will fail." In a press release, the SV camp revealed its new mining pool, compatible with their new protocol signaling a continued push for a split come Nov 15.

What would a hard fork mean for Bitcoin Cash?

If both camps are unable to resolve their differences and unite, the Nov 15 split may very well be crypto equivalent of the 'nuclear option' — and the undoing of BCH. While Bitcoin Cash is currently the 4th largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, it has been facing trouble with merchant adoption rates slowing as its value continues to struggle. A hard fork may just be the push that sends its value plummeting completely, should one of the two camps neglect the other camp's chain entirely.

If the fork happens, there would be the mammoth task of separating the identities of the two altcoins in the mind of the public. The confusion may affect the value of both currencies and for the newer offshoot, differentiating itself in the ever-growing altcoin sector is likely to be a difficult undertaking.