The Bitcoin Cash (BCH) blockchain is set to hard fork on November 15. While the cryptocurrency foresees two hard forks a year, this month’s upgrade could divide the chain as two sides have been gaining momentum: Bitcoin Cash ABC (BCHABC) and Bitcoin Cash SV (BCHSV).
Behind BCHABC is the Bitcoin ABC development team, which originally forked the Bitcoin blockchain last year to create Bitcoin Cash, while behind BCHSV is self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto Craig Wright and nChain. The proposals aren’t compatible with each other.
While the ABC development team proposes changes to the BCH protocol that would make its blockchain more efficient, the SV team defends, among other things, that the network’s block size should be quadrupled to 128 MB.
Various organizations support the ABC team, including Chinese manufacturing giant Bitmain, Bitcoin.com, ViaBTC, BTC.top, and others. Those that support it account for roughly 40% of the network’s hashrate. Behind BCHSV are not only nChain, but also CoinGeek – the largest bitcoin cash mining pool – and other mining giants like SBI and GMO.
The upcoming hard fork has led to what some on social media are calling a “hashwar,” as both sides are looking to get the majority of the network’s hashrate for both security and legitimacy purposes. As CryptoGlobe recently covered, Bitmain is looking to deploy 90,000 Antminer S9 ASICs as part of the “war.”
On microblogging website Twitter tensions have risen, with both sides attacking each other. Bitmain founder Jihan Wu has been defending the ABC protocol, while discrediting Craig Wright’s claims.
The whole BCH community are working together to kick Fake Satoshi out. The resisitence against cult leader proves the inner strength and sophistication of the BCH ecosystem!
— Jihan Wu (@JihanWu) November 9, 2018
Craig Wright, a former ally of the ABC side when BCH was created, recently lashed out at Roger Ver, Jihan Wu, and others in light of the upcoming hard fork. In a recent letter Ver shared on YouTube, Wright threatened to “do [two] years of no trade. Nothing.”
If @jihanwu, @Rogerver & ABC devs want to make #Permissionless Kiddie porn sites and Silk Road Version2.0
They can piss off to #Dash
They are NOT adding this to #BCH
This is the ONLY real use case they have and it is not happening!
— Dr Craig S Wright (@ProfFaustus) November 8, 2018
Letting the Market Decide
Poloniex, a cryptocurrency exchange recently acquired by Circle, has launched pre-fork trading for both the BCHABC and BCHSV tokens. In its announcement, the exchange noted that it believes “the responsible thing” for it to do is “remain neutral” while empowering the community to show its support through trading.
Both tokens are being traded against Circle’s USDC stablecoin, and against BTC. So far, traders have seemingly been siding with BCHABC as it’s currently at 470 USDC, while BCHSV is at 68 USDC.
Data from Coin.Dance shows that 60.7% of the businesses it tracks have explicitly revealed they support the Bitcoin ABC roadmap, while a further 37% are ready for it. Similarly, only 7% of tracked businesses have shown support for the SV roadmap, and 15.5% are ready for it.
So far, BCH itself has been surging thanks to companies like Coinbase and Binance announcing they would support the hard fork, meaning users who hold BCH on their platform will receive their BCHSV tokens at a 1:1 ratio.
In the cryptocurrency ecosystem, most cryptos surge ahead of hard forks that will result in airdropped tokens, and BCH’s case seems to be no exception. In the last two weeks, its price has risen from about $440 to $532 at press time.
