Anybody can at any time create a hard fork of any open-source cryptocurrency, and nobody's consent is needed. All it takes is some programming knowledge.
BitCoinCash (Or BitCoincasH? Don't confuse with BitConneCt, the scam coin) has some good ideas, mainly the increase of the block size, but would have been more useful as a replacement of bitcoin, which would require consensus of a majority of the BitCoin community.
I don't see people going around correcting the names of other forks. I don't see people calling for Bitcoin Gold to be called BGold. How about Segwit2X? That's a fork too. Let's call it BS2X! Why should that get to carry the name of Bitcoin? And yes, Bitcoin Cash is not Bitcoin - it's Bitcoin Cash.
Full disclosure - I hold both coins, but I'm equally frustrated by BOTH communities. They are both so toxic and more focused on shilling and smearing than on growing and scaling their respective projects. I do find that Bitcoin Cash is much closer to the original vision of Bitcoin than "Bitcoin" is. At least I can make a quick and cheap transaction using Bitcoin Cash.
Personally, I look forward to the day that there's a decentralized peer to peer currency that runs at scale. I have a feeling thought that it won't be either of these, so this debate is probably a moot point, but the conversation is worth having, because this situation is what will create urgency for a brighter future.
A hardfork is not meant to fork off, but to upgrade the system. Segwit 2x expected to get full consensus and become the upgraded Bitcoin, but they didn't get it so they cancelled. A fork as Bcash has done is actually a FAILED fork, because only a tiny part of the community was supporting it and thats why the Bitcoin network rejected their nodes because it was not compatible with the majority anymore. But people who say this is the real Bitcoin are liars, because the community has never chosen for this code.
I am very bullish on Lighning Network, and reading the paper I know that NOTHING is centralized (every action is backed by smart contracts backed by the blockchain) and IMPLEMENTING KYC AND AML IS IMPOSSIBLE (standard Bcash FUD). It is being rolled out and expected to be consumer ready this year, so we have an instant, extremely cheap, scalable and super secure global payment system soon.
BTW the vision of the white paper doesn't matter, you think the first creators of the internet saw video streaming, virtual reality ect as a use case of the internet? So the recent internet is shit because it doesn't fit the original vision?
I know now the purpose of a hardfork has changed, today it is used as a kind of an ICO whereby the new created altcoin gets a lot of attention, can profit from the Bitcoin brand and get distributed under many people.
I'm fine with Bitcoin being whatever it will evolve into.
Right now my favorite description of what it is this: "the reserve currency for other cryptos." - But to say the original vision doesn't matter, doesn't make much sense either. The internet analogy doesn't fit, because today's internet is undeniably better than the original vision. Is today's Bitcoin better than the original idea behind it? The answer is subjective, but the demand for a decentralized currency is real.
When one transaction can cost up to tens of dollars I can't help but think is this what Satoshi wanted? Is there a consensus for bitcoin being too expensive to use? Clearly not, no matter how much censorship happens under Theymos to make everything look just fine. Competition is good for everyone and the best money will be used.
Look. I hope you do really well with your coin and I'm looking forward to Lightning finally getting implemented, which would at least make the old network a viable payment method again in some sense.
But if you think the whitepaper and the fundamentals laid out there - that define Bitcoin - are irrelevant, so is your use of the name.
To fully evaluate the technical implementation requires a pretty specialized set of skills and understanding. I think a good barometer for the layman is to observe how the platform performs under increased demand and merchant adoption. We will see!
I would suggest you read the full white paper, as well as Satoshis own emails and posts. He makes a lot of sense in them and it's often not as hard to understand as some may want you to think it is.
"Performance" can be a good barometer, but it doesn't show which coin is Bitcoin unless you define "performance" by adhering to the fundamentals Satoshi wrote about in the white paper and explained elsewhere. A lot of anti-Bitcoin Cashers would suggest that a high price is or popular support is "performance" enough, when that actually has nothing to do with it.
Yes, we'll see what happens. My hope is that both systems endure on their own merits, but that Bitcoin Cash lives on known by most simply as Bitcoin.
I hear you. I have read the whitepaper and some of the emails, but it starts to fall apart for me when I get into some of the non-basic cryptographic concepts and economic theory. I don't consider "high price" any sort of indicator at all though. It's more of a red herring. I like Vitalik Buterin's somewhat recent series of tweets that question whether the high market cap is actually deserved. Bitcoiners should be asking themselves the same questions.
Anybody can at any time create a hard fork of any open-source cryptocurrency, and nobody's consent is needed. All it takes is some programming knowledge.
BitCoinCash (Or BitCoincasH? Don't confuse with BitConneCt, the scam coin) has some good ideas, mainly the increase of the block size, but would have been more useful as a replacement of bitcoin, which would require consensus of a majority of the BitCoin community.
Yes, that's the definition of a fork.
I don't see people going around correcting the names of other forks. I don't see people calling for Bitcoin Gold to be called BGold. How about Segwit2X? That's a fork too. Let's call it BS2X! Why should that get to carry the name of Bitcoin? And yes, Bitcoin Cash is not Bitcoin - it's Bitcoin Cash.
Full disclosure - I hold both coins, but I'm equally frustrated by BOTH communities. They are both so toxic and more focused on shilling and smearing than on growing and scaling their respective projects. I do find that Bitcoin Cash is much closer to the original vision of Bitcoin than "Bitcoin" is. At least I can make a quick and cheap transaction using Bitcoin Cash.
Personally, I look forward to the day that there's a decentralized peer to peer currency that runs at scale. I have a feeling thought that it won't be either of these, so this debate is probably a moot point, but the conversation is worth having, because this situation is what will create urgency for a brighter future.
/rant
A hardfork is not meant to fork off, but to upgrade the system. Segwit 2x expected to get full consensus and become the upgraded Bitcoin, but they didn't get it so they cancelled. A fork as Bcash has done is actually a FAILED fork, because only a tiny part of the community was supporting it and thats why the Bitcoin network rejected their nodes because it was not compatible with the majority anymore. But people who say this is the real Bitcoin are liars, because the community has never chosen for this code.
I am very bullish on Lighning Network, and reading the paper I know that NOTHING is centralized (every action is backed by smart contracts backed by the blockchain) and IMPLEMENTING KYC AND AML IS IMPOSSIBLE (standard Bcash FUD). It is being rolled out and expected to be consumer ready this year, so we have an instant, extremely cheap, scalable and super secure global payment system soon.
BTW the vision of the white paper doesn't matter, you think the first creators of the internet saw video streaming, virtual reality ect as a use case of the internet? So the recent internet is shit because it doesn't fit the original vision?
I know now the purpose of a hardfork has changed, today it is used as a kind of an ICO whereby the new created altcoin gets a lot of attention, can profit from the Bitcoin brand and get distributed under many people.
It's certainly a polarizing topic, isn't it?
I'm fine with Bitcoin being whatever it will evolve into.
Right now my favorite description of what it is this: "the reserve currency for other cryptos." - But to say the original vision doesn't matter, doesn't make much sense either. The internet analogy doesn't fit, because today's internet is undeniably better than the original vision. Is today's Bitcoin better than the original idea behind it? The answer is subjective, but the demand for a decentralized currency is real.
When one transaction can cost up to tens of dollars I can't help but think is this what Satoshi wanted? Is there a consensus for bitcoin being too expensive to use? Clearly not, no matter how much censorship happens under Theymos to make everything look just fine. Competition is good for everyone and the best money will be used.
Look. I hope you do really well with your coin and I'm looking forward to Lightning finally getting implemented, which would at least make the old network a viable payment method again in some sense.
But if you think the whitepaper and the fundamentals laid out there - that define Bitcoin - are irrelevant, so is your use of the name.
It's nice to see a more balanced perspective.
Is there any point on which the Bitcoin Cash implementation as you know it is not matching Satoshis definition of Bitcoin?
It's sad imo that we have to add a redundant "cash" on the end, but that's the situation we find ourselves in.
To fully evaluate the technical implementation requires a pretty specialized set of skills and understanding. I think a good barometer for the layman is to observe how the platform performs under increased demand and merchant adoption. We will see!
I would suggest you read the full white paper, as well as Satoshis own emails and posts. He makes a lot of sense in them and it's often not as hard to understand as some may want you to think it is.
"Performance" can be a good barometer, but it doesn't show which coin is Bitcoin unless you define "performance" by adhering to the fundamentals Satoshi wrote about in the white paper and explained elsewhere. A lot of anti-Bitcoin Cashers would suggest that a high price is or popular support is "performance" enough, when that actually has nothing to do with it.
Yes, we'll see what happens. My hope is that both systems endure on their own merits, but that Bitcoin Cash lives on known by most simply as Bitcoin.
I hear you. I have read the whitepaper and some of the emails, but it starts to fall apart for me when I get into some of the non-basic cryptographic concepts and economic theory. I don't consider "high price" any sort of indicator at all though. It's more of a red herring. I like Vitalik Buterin's somewhat recent series of tweets that question whether the high market cap is actually deserved. Bitcoiners should be asking themselves the same questions.