Twilight dominated pop culture, Beyonce and Jay-Z were newlyweds and on January 3rd, 2009 Bitcoin was born. Launched by Satoshi Nakamoto via a paper titled “Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System”.
The first Bitcoin transaction took place on January 12th, 2009. Bitcoin was valued at $0 when Satoshi sent 10 Bitcoins to well known cypherpunk Hal Finney. This was Bitcoins “Shot heard round the world” moment. Bitcoin was revolutionary, there was no central governance, no bank or 3rd party capable of interfering. Anyone could run Bitcoin’s software and decisions were made by majority rule. Transactions were global, instant and virtually free. From 2009 to 2015 Bitcoin existed on the fringe of mainstream society, the realm of the technology savvy; cypherpunks, geeks, and nerds. I had friends mining it, trading it, and evangelizing it. In 2014, with the help of a friend, I built a rudimentary Bitcoin ATM for educational purposes. I brought this to a local Maker Fair where I accepted $1 donations for an educational charity in exchange for $1 in Bitcoin. There were few takers. In the months following my Bitcoin ATM youtube video garnered a whopping 7 likes. Bitcoin was not yet mainstream news.
From Bitcoins birth until 2015 the plan was clear, Bitcoin was “Peer to Peer Currency” devoid of any third party dependencies. It was a decentralized network where all transactions were stored in blocks of data publicly verifiable by anyone with a computer. These 1mb blocks contained more than enough room for Bitcoin in these early days, but would increase in size as Bitcoin became more popular. In the same way your computer or phone has increased its storage over the years, Satoshi's plan was the clear; Bitcoin would by increasing the block size.
In 2015 something changed. Bitcoin caught the attention of the media, wall street, and the banks. The two main discussion forums for Bitcoin experienced an influx of users. A group of developers began claiming larger block storage space was impossible. These developers were supported by what seemed like an army of new users agreeing with them. Online it seemed the majority of users agreed with them. In person, the story was different. Most everyone I knew understood the block size needed to increase as usage did. Online the propaganda was overwhelming; Bitcoin could not scale without the help of private off chain transactions.
In 2017, after a long misinformation campaign, the new developers took control of Bitcoin’s code. They censored discussion forums, banned long-time Bitcoin advocates, and even published their own version of Satoshi’s white paper with critical points changed, yet still attributed to Satoshi. It felt like the dystopian future Ray Bradbury warned us about. The developers kept the storage size small and rebranded Bitcoin a store of value. Their version of Bitcoin wasn’t a threat to the establishment. It was a boon for online trading platforms and financial institutions. The same financial institutions some of these developers work for.
Bitcoin had been hijacked, the world didn’t know it, but the cypherpunks, geeks, and nerds did. Supported by miners believing in Satoshi’s original plan, a group of supporters forked the code to create Bitcoin Cash.
On August 1st, 2017 Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Bitcoin Core (BTC) split. These two blockchains have a shared history. From Satoshi’s genesis block until block #477,120 they are identical. From that block on, the two coins took different paths. Bitcoin Cash continues to provide instant and nearly free transactions. It works the same way Satoshi’s Bitcoin did when he sent the first transaction to Hal Finney. It works the way my Bitcoin ATM did; send $1, receive $1.
The BTC chain doesn’t work this way anymore. Its transactions are no longer instant, or even fast, they can take hours, days, and sometimes never complete. The fees for sending these transactions regularly top $2.00. BTC doesn’t work with the Bitcoin ATM I built. The utility is gone, Satoshi's invention replaced by an expensive settlement layer used by banks and exchanges giving you IOU’s instead of Bitcoin.
Online the propaganda is still overwhelming. The banks and Wall St. control the narrative. But on the ground Satoshi Nakamoto’s invention lives on in Bitcoin Cash. Averaging over 100,000 transactions a day it’s used to buy goods and services around the world. Every day new users tricked by the propaganda discover the utility of peer to peer currency and begin using BCH. The world is waking up to Bitcoin Cash.