With the Bitcoin BCH network upgrade on 15th November, a hash war has begun with miners voting between Bitcoin SV and Bitcoin ABC.
As expected, Bitcoin ABC appeared to take a lead on the first day by receiving a boost from temporary, “rented” hash power subsidised by Roger Ver’s organisation Bitcoin.com and from ABC’s main supporter Bitmain Technologies, the Chinese manufacturer of crypto mining rigs.
However, Bitcoin SV has support from BCH miner, CoinGeek, and blockchain research and development firm, nChain.
CoinGeek founder Calvin Ayre comments: “We are both in this battle for the long haul. We will mine BCH and fight as long as it takes to protect the original Bitcoin from Bitmain, Jihan Wu, and their Bitcoin ABC development group who all want to change BCH into some altcoin wormhole token technology. Roger Ver’s company Bitcoin.com is subsidising hash for only 24 hours, taken from his own customers.”
“As for Bitmain, to keep up with us in this hash war, Bitmain will have to spend millions of dollars a day from its investors’ money and shareholder assets, while also trying to raise more investor money for its shaky IPO. This will bleed Bitmain’s cash and cryptocurrency reserves, because we are prepared to fight for months and months. If I were a shareholder or investor in Bitmain, I’d be asking why Jihan Wu is spending all your money to control BCH when th business supports multiple cryptocurrencies.”
Bitcoin is about Proof of Work (PoW), not Proof of Rented Hash (PoRH), he argues. To decide which chain should be the true Bitcoin BCH, you should pick the longest chain with the most legitimate, sustained PoW invested. “It is ridiculous to count transient, rented hash which comes onto BCH artificially for short bursts of time because it is subsidised to do so, but then disappears and does not really sustain PoW on the network.”
“That is like paying a person to show up in a foreign country to vote in a political election, without meeting citizenship requirements to vote. At CoinGeek’s BCH Miners Choice Summit on 2nd November, we were offered thousands and thousands of petahash to rent for this battle. While we can afford to pay for more rented hash than Bitmain can, we decided to set a better precedent for Bitcoin and fight with honest hash invested to support BCH long-term,” Ayre concludes.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author should not be considered as financial advice. We do not give advice on financial products.