Bitcoin Cash announces $200 million ecosystem investment fund

Bitcoin Cash chief Roger Ver has announced a $200 million “ecosystem investment fund” to help further the development of the popular altcoin.

Speaking at a Bitcoin Cash meetup in London, Ver’s presentation – entitled ‘The War on Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash’ – covered wide ranging issues on the nature of cryptocurrency for payments.

Sharing the vision of Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Ver explained:

“What we’re doing is the same thing we’ve been doing from the very beginning. We’re building peer-to-peer electronic cash for the world, just like in the title of the whitepaper.”

Ver was referring to the original Bitcoin whitepaper by Satoshi Nakamoto, which describes the Bitcoin protocol as “A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”.

According to Ver, as of 2019, BCH is the most widely accepted payments cryptocurrency in physical stores across the world, with this number set to grow. Ver hinted:

“With some of the business development deals we have brewing at Bitcoin.com, I am certain there will be significantly more places accepting Bitcoin Cash than any other cryptocurrency shortly.”

Although Ver didn’t elaborate on these deals, he did use the presentation to announce a huge $200 million ecosystem development fund moving into 2020.

Bitcoin Cash ecosystem fund

The new ecosystem fund will be used for investing in businesses that want to build on top of Bitcoin Cash.

Describing the impetus behind the fund, Ver said:

“We’re really eager to build more economic tools to bring more economic freedom to people all over the world, and I think Bitcoin Cash is the best tool to do that.”

Nic Cary, co-founder of Blockchain.com, tweeted his praise for the new fund:

Applicants are invited to apply for funding through the Bitcoin.com website.

Can crypto truly be cash?

One audience member commented that the only way the UK would recognise Bitcoin Cash as true ‘cash money’ was if a High Court judgement ruled that profit made from BCH was not eligible for capital gains tax.

The audience member asked if Bitcoin Cash would be willing to provide support for such a case should it arise in UK court, to which Ver responded:

“You don’t have to convince me one bit, we’d be more than happy to financially support that, we’ll do fundraisers online, we’ll do news stories, we’ll be helping lead the charge.”

However, these comments come just days after a UK Jurisdiction Taskforce classified crypto as ‘property’ rather than a form of currency, and it’s unclear how Bitcoin Cash’s plans for a peer-to-peer digital cash would be formally recognised in the UK.