The world is on the brink of another economic collapse, Bitcoin will be worth nothing next year, and people should sink their savings into cryptocurrency.

These are the views of colourful Canadian billionaire Calvin Ayre whose Bitcoin Cash venture was hard-forked last month to produce Bitcoin Cash ABC led by Roger Ver and Jihan Wu of Bitmain, and his own Bitcoin Cash SV with his British counterpart Dr Craig S Wright.

Coin Rivet’s Darren Parkin caught up with the controversial character to find out more about what went on during the hard fork, why he thinks Bitcoin will collapse, and why he so strongly believes in ‘Satoshi Vision’…

So, Calvin, you’re convinced there’s a crash coming?

Well, the old-fashioned financial markets absolutely hate uncertainty and with Brexit, Trump and China you’ve got a whole warehouse full of uncertainty so it figures that the downward trend will continue, yes. It’s also overdue.

What’s driving a potential global economic meltdown?

‘Meltdown’ might be a bit dramatic but that’s another thing that’s fuelling a lot of negativity – hyperbolic reporting! It’s just overdue and things work in cycles.

You think people should seriously look at throwing their savings into crypto?

I think many lost their faith in big banks back in 2008 and they’ve done little to change since and out of that a groundswell movement towards a decentralised economy has been gathering pace and the longer it survives the more trust builds.

It’s sad that Bitcoin got derailed by developer groups who changed the original Bitcoin design and vision; that’s been a distraction but now with Bitcoin SV, we have restored the original protocol.

Bitcoin SV also plans to enable massive on-chain scaling, which will eliminate the possibility of any more contentious hard forks which, obviously, creates a stability we can build on. Stability and scaling also mean Bitcoin SV will be enterprise-friendly.

Bitcoin SV’s philosophy is also government realistic. To grow, Bitcoin must live in the real world, with real laws applying to businesses that operate on it.

I think Bitcoin SV can complement other usual market crash hedges such as prime real estate, art and precious metals. The crypto tokens based on platforms that do not have any utility should drop with the market; this pretty much means any that cannot scale and offer low cost micro-transactions.

Lots of people suggesting the recent market volatility was triggered by the hard fork – any thoughts?

The hard fork was a distraction but the downturn is because the SegWit coin that’s erroneously still called Bitcoin (Core) now follows the old-fashioned financial trends.

It’s also because people wrongly focus on market cap when it should be about scalability and actual usability. Bitcoin SV is a currency, not an asset just to be held, and has real utility.

That said, there is no question that the hash dumping that the ABC conspirators did, in violation of the Nakamoto Consensus Rules that run Bitcoin, destabilised the markets even more.

Did that all go as you would have expected it to? Any regrets?

I certainly wish it wasn’t necessary but we now have a proper roadmap and with the 64MB block recently mined by CoinGeek and bigger to come in future BSV professional stress tests, we can prove scalability and that removes the risk of further contentious hard forks.

Bitcoin is back on the right track now.

So, I wish we were not forced to spend all the money to defend original Bitcoin from attack once again, but, once it started, it has unfolded exactly as we expected and is continuing to unfold, perhaps, even better than we anticipated.

BSV seems to be holding its own against one hell of a riptide stripping altcoins off the beach – where’s the strength coming from?

Surely, you’re not going to make me say ‘scalability’ again! For those that understand Bitcoin’s vision, it is very clear Bitcoin SV is exactly that. Massively scale, keep the platform stable and attract the support of major enterprises, start-ups and government.

What’s next for BSV?

2019 is the year of massive on chain scaling and when the true power of the original Bitcoin economic model is, finally, going to be obvious to everyone.

Bitcoin – are its days numbered?

If you mean Segwit BTC, then yes, I’m afraid I am predicting it to go to zero value as it has no utility… it does not do anything and they intentionally are anti-scaling. Bitcoin, the technology and economic model, are alive and well with Bitcoin SV (Satoshi Vision) and is going to have an amazing year.