Well, I have been saying Bitcoin Cash is the real deal for some time. The way you say "support it" makes it sound like it's a political candidate. You're too emotionally invested in your trades/holds.
"I'd rather get a real, decent alt instead."
Sorry to be blunt but, this tells me you probably don't know much about Bitcoin Cash.
Have you personally read the entire Bitcoin whitepaper?
Bitcoin Cash appears to be the only real Bitcoin in existence today. Bitcoin was never meant to be restricted to 1MB blocks, or have $20 fees. The white paper makes this explicit.
Let's take a trip into the "way-back" machine. And by way-back, I mean, 14 months:
The funny thing is the very vendor mentioned in that image, Steam, now no longer accepts Bitcoin precisely because they sell items from $1-$60 and they can't use a payment format with $20 fees.
Bitcoin Cash is Bitcoin. The market doesn't know it yet.
PS - This doesn't mean Bitcoin is going down. It may become digital gold. I'm not hating on Bitcoin. But it's no longer Bitcoin.
Here's a simple artist's rendition of why:
PPS - Also, to be clear, I'm not saying it's a good time to buy into BCH, or sell. It is, however, a good time to trade, and it's volatile, so if you put in a low limit buy, you may get a bargain on a small piece to hodl.
Oh, yeah, maybe I wasn't clear. I don't really care which Bitcoin is the real Bitcoin.. I think they're both not the best cryptocurrencies. I think we're headed to a future where you can pay with whatever crypto you're holding, no matter if it's BTC, BCH or STEEM or ETH. So whichever is the real Bitcoin doesn't matter. Bitcoin (either one) only matters now, and will continue to matter as the biggest PoW coin or atleast one of them will.
Somehow I suspect (a feeling) that in the long run, PoW will survive and indeed be viewed in a more positive light than today. But using BTC for payments? Nope, not without significant upgrades. Using BCH for payments? Cheaper sure, but less trust in the longterm reliability of the network due to centralization risks. Some people will trust it enough to use it, and it will probably be safe (you'd have to be an idiot to kill your own goose with the golden eggs), and others will prefer to store it in BTC as 'store of value' and infrequently move it due to costs.
But even though I am a big crypto-enthusiast, I've learned to stay critical and I would still rather place (most of) my bets on crypto's that have a clear-cut value proposition other than 'it is money'. I know that we're all falling big time for the belief in crypto, and yes, fiat money is only belief too. But in the long run, if you have the choice between Crypto A which is 'like fiat' and Crypto B which has a clear value proposition... Well, it kind of ties back to our other discussion right now in the other post regarding fundamentals. A clear value proposition will be the fundamentals that keep it afloat when the belief in 'money like fiat' starts wavering, I believe.
So, that's why I said I'd rather put my money in a good alt than BCH. I feel like ETH is perhaps a less explosive bet, but a more safer bet. Even better is something like OMG, where there is a profit-sharing mechanism built into the token. It doesn't hinge on belief (=potential bubble) but is more akin to traditional investments.
Hm.. I think this discussion is inspiring a new topic for one of my next posts.
Edit: by the way, I think they should unify both Bitcoin communities. Let BTC be digital gold, or a digital 'savings account', and let BCH take care of payments. That's essentially what both communities seem to want anyway. Atomic Swap between the two, integrate the whole damn thing together and there shall be peace on earth
"That's essentially what both communities seem to want anyway."
Unfortunately, this is absolutely what the
snakesdevelopers of Bitcoin core want, who have publicly admitted they have restricted network speeds by preventing upgrades to increase fees to force users onto their "second layer, NOT decentralized" solutions like Lightning.The more I think about it though, the more I am starting to understand why indeed 2nd layer solutions are necessary in crypto. It was explained by a recent video of Boxmining where he interviews the Trinity developer (which is Lighting/Raiden, but for NEO). There they talk about the thousands of transactions per second that are required for running games, for each individual player, and how no scaling solution for the main chain can ever be enough to accommodate that many transactions. Of course this is more of an ETH/NEO discussion than a BTC one as BTC is purely a currency and not a platform as such. But it did make me view these second layer solutions in a different light.
As for the Bitcoin transaction fees, it turns out that Coinbase might in fact be the reason why fees are so high: they are spamming the mempool with individual transactions. Coinbase is taking measures now, one of which is finally implementing Segwit. It's going to be interesting to see how the fees develop once they do.
Also, the Lightning Network has arrived, sort of. It makes the fees practically zero, or will over time. I'm still undecided on the implications this has for decentralization and trust. I think you remain 100% in control of your own funds, and the only possible risk might be during a transaction, but otherwise everything should still be Bitcoin-secure. I could live with that, for the time being.
Actually, I just did some more thinking on this... and thinking about your remark about taking the emotions out of it. But in that case, why even bother with BTC/BCH at all? With the uncertainty of whichever is the 'true bitcoin', it seems like there is an added 50% risk involved in investing in either of them, that has to do a lot with emotional belief?
I'm feeling better and better with being diversified in many projects! Less uncertainty, they're all great
" But in that case, why even bother with BTC/BCH at all?"
This is a great question, and sometimes we can't see the answer even though it's sitting right in front of us.
We are all extremely early adopters. Most people have still, at best, heard only of Bitcoin in the crypto sphere. If we buy what we know to be the best coins on fundamentals this early, we are going to miss the price pumps as dumb money flows into the sector (See: BTC, Eth, LTC, Ripple, etc...this year).
BTC will be first, for now, as that's how money comes in.
Remember, if you're posting on a crypto-website about crypto...you need to drink a lot of lead paint before you're operating at the Wall Street level, which just recently pumped a nothing stock to 7.1b because they started "block-chain" to their press releases.
You're absolutely right.. but those lead paint drinking people obviously know nothing about crypto and wouldn't know the difference between BTC and BCH either. They just look at the one that's priced the highest as being 'the' Bitcoin, I believe.
So for now, those lead paint drinking people still only care for BTC and probably don't even know BCH exists and if they do it's only to get in, and get out quickly for a quick profit. They don't really add much to the ecosystem except volatility.
Bitcoin is king for now because it has the name and the appeal (moreso than BCH) but I think pretty soon 'crypto' is going to replace 'bitcoin' as the buzzword of choice. Once we're no longer talking about Bitcoin but rather Crypto then I'm not sure either Bitcoin will survive into the future. Neither of them scales enough, and when it comes down to wether I want money that is just money, or money that pays me for holding it, I'm going with the latter. Once people start thinking with their wallets instead of their hearts, I think eventually sentiment will change towards these crypto's more. I mean, why not? All things being equal, one giving 8% dividend while the other does not.. I know what I'd choose.
I do agree that playing the 'dumb money' game can be more profitable than being 'too early smart money'. I tend to be too early.. I'm there even before smart money shows up it seems (usually this means I lose out on other opportunities big time) but I still feel it is a more safer bet than gambling on what the herd is going to do. If the project is good, I know that smart money will show up eventually, and I may get a 10x instead of a 50% gain.
Like, dumb money made BTC skyrocket and my BTC value in my portfolio sucked big time. There's something to be said for chasing the rises, sure, I could have benefitted maybe. But instead I patiently waited for my turn to rise, and now I am in a pretty good shape again in terms of BTC value in my portfolio. There really is more to HODL than just meme power.
edit: Also this discussion makes me think I should look into RaiBlocks again. I just wish I could withdraw less than 100. It's an interesting project.. if anything is going to function as peer-to-peer cash I believe it is going to be projects like that and IOTA. I'm starting to believe more and more that blockchain may not be suitable for instant micro payments.