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Bitcoin Cash (BCH) has finally forked. Bitcoin SV, the protocol implementation favored by Craig Wright and Calvin Ayre, is currently trailing in the battle for the largest share of the network’s hashing power and right now, ABC controls BCH.
But is the battle of the billionaires settled? Bitcoin.com began a ‘hash blast’ to keep ABC in the running, but many authorities believe that SV has a better chance of coming out ahead.
Of the final six blocks on the BCH chain, four were from SV-associated mining pools,and only two were from mining pools on the ABC side. However, the first two blocks mined post-fork both showed up first on the ABC chain.
Shortly after, the opposite camp mined their own, separate versions of the two blocks under Bitcoin SV rules, indicating that the chains had fully diverged – a complete fork. However, the SV chain has since lagged further behind the ABC fork in the following hour, according to live data from CoinDance.
Because the Nakamoto Consensus attributes “truth” in relation to the longest valid chain, this suggests that the Bitcoin ABC protocol is in the lead to become “the” Bitcoin Cash – by a hair.
(Update: As of 2:30 pm ET, the ABC prong appears to have gained ground. It is now 6 blocks ahead of BSV)
This post will be updated regularly throughout the day.
Meanwhile, the price of BCH on Bitfinex plunged in the minutes before trading was paused, touching $250 following highs of $590 over the last week – leading some to claim foul play.
Although most updates – or ‘forks’ – take place relatively harmoniously, this one was quickly characterized by a dispute between some of the leading figures within the BCH community. The uncertainty created by the fork may have been a leading cause behind yesterday’s market crash.
Bitcoin SV (Satoshi Vision) is a plan to increase the size of Bitcoin Cash blocks to 128 MB. This implementation is favored by Calvin Ayre, the billionaire founder of BCH mining pool CoinGeek, as well as nChain owner Craig Wright.
On the other end, Bitcoin ABC wanted to keep block sizes as they are, but introduce non-cash transactions. This side is supported by Jihan Wu, co-founder of the Chinese mining giant, Bitmain, as well as Roger Ver, the CEO of Bitcoin.com, a cryptocurrency service provider.
There was also a third implementation, known as Bitcoin Unlimited, which wanted to allow miners to decide the block sizes they wanted to process. This failed to gain any significant traction throughout the runup to the Bitcoin Cash fork.
Data collected by Coin.Dance, a blockchain statistics website, found a strong majority of Bitcoin Cash mining power supported the Bitcoin SV protocol implementation. At the time of writing, approximately 75% are prepared to move to SV, with only around 20% willing to support Bitcoin ABC; the same as were willing to move onto Bitcoin Unlimited. The data also showed that among companies operating on BCH, almost all of them were willing to move onto ABC, whereas only around half would support SV.
After the BCH fork, what next?
In the lead-up to today’s fork, it seemed inevitable that the network would transition over to the Bitcoin SV implementation, whose mining pools possessed a commanding lead in hashing power.
But there was no sign that advocates of Bitcoin ABC would accept defeat. Crypto Briefing has learned that Bitcoin.com is using its mining pool to ‘hash blast’ in favor of the ABC implementation.
A notification on the Bitcoin.com website says that until 07:00 tomorrow morning, mining pools users will all be switched to process ABC blocks. The company says that they will also suspend all withdrawals until they “consider the network is [sic] secure.”
As of 2:26 ET, Bitcoin ABC has successfully mined 12 blocks, placing it six blocks ahead of the SV implementation. Three quarters of them were mined by the Bitcoin.com pool – suggesting that the hash blast is having the desired effect.
Sources have disclosed to Crypto Briefing that there is no guarantee that miners will stay on the ABC implementation after tomorrow morning’s deadline. They have even suggested SV could emerge as the largest protocol implementation in as little as 12 hours after the fork.
Stay tuned… there can be only one winner in this epic game of Rochambeau.
Because the real loser here is the crypto community. Take that, ordinary investors!
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[bs-embed url=”https://youtu.be/cwA8V6hcqQo?t=5″ title=”Roger Ver and Craig Wright Face Off” show_title=”1″ icon=”” heading_color=”” heading_style=”default” bs-show-desktop=”1″ bs-show-tablet=”1″ bs-show-phone=”1″ bs-text-color-scheme=”” css=”” custom-css-class=”” custom-id=””]
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Disclaimer: The author is invested in Bitcoin, which is mentioned in this article.
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