LONDON, November 16, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --
With the Bitcoin BCH network upgrade on November 15, a hash war has begun with miners
voting between Bitcoin SV and Bitcoin ABC - two competing
implementations of the BCH protocol. As fully expected, Bitcoin ABC
appeared to take a temporary lead on the first day by receiving an
artificial boost from temporary, "rented" hash power subsidized by
Roger Ver's organization
Bitcoin.com, which announced it would use its pool customer hash on
BCH for just 24 hours, and from ABC's main supporter Bitmain
Technologies, the Chinese manufacturer of crypto mining rigs.
However, Bitcoin SV has strong support from CoinGeek, the largest
BCH miner, and nChain, the leading blockchain research &
development firm. CoinGeek and nChain have the resources to fight
long term with their own sustained hash, long after Bitmain cannot
afford to bleed money for rented
hash. Therefore, the
BCH hash war will not
be decided in 1 or
2 days, but over many
days and possibly weeks by on-going
miner votes with
sustained Proof of Work. Until a
dominant chain emerges, cryptocurrency exchanges, wallet and
service providers are advised to remain
neutral, and to
run a Bitcoin SV node to be prepared for the
best interests of users.
(Photo:
https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/786041/CoinGeek_Table.jpg )
(Photo:
https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/786042/Hash_Rate.jpg )
CoinGeek founder Calvin Ayre
expressed his determination to fight the BCH hash war as long as it
takes:
"CoinGeek and nChain are in this battle for the long
haul. We will mine BCH and fight as long as it takes to
protect the original Bitcoin from Bitmain, Jihan Wu, and their Bitcoin ABC development
group who all want to change BCH into some alt-coin Wormhole token
technology. Roger Ver's company
Bitcoin.com is subsidizing hash for only 24 hours, taken from his
own customers. As for Bitmain, to keep up with us in this hash war,
Bitmain will have to spend millions of dollars a day from its
investors' money and shareholder assets, while also trying to raise
more investor money for its shaky IPO. This will bleed
Bitmain's cash and cryptocurrency reserves, because we are prepared
to fight for months and months. If I were a shareholder or investor
in Bitmain, I'd be asking why Jihan
Wu is spending all your money to control BCH when Bitmain's
business supports multiple cryptocurrencies."
Bitcoin SV is the new full node implementation for Bitcoin Cash
that seeks to restore the original "Satoshi Vision" for Bitcoin and
allow it to massively scale. For the November 15 upgrade, Bitcoin SV's feature set is
not compatible with that of competing client Bitcoin ABC. When
there is a disagreement between rule sets, the original Bitcoin
white paper described the "Nakamoto consensus" method for miners to
vote with their computing power (1 CPU = 1 vote) to enforce any
rules: "The majority decision is represented by the longest chain,
which has the greatest proof-of-work effort invested in it."
The current hash war is the world's first test of Nakamoto
consensus. After the November 15
upgrade, Bitcoin ABC appeared to temporarily lead with a higher
portion of the BCH network's total hash power. But ABC's perceived
first-day advantage comes from a sudden burst of hash presumably
rented from the Bitcoin Core (BTC) network to move over to BCH. By
November 14, the day before the hard
fork, Bitcoin SV's support consistently grew for weeks and
dominated with a clear 72-78% lead over ABC (18-22%):
Bitcoin ABC even dropped to tying for 3rd place with
Bitcoin Unlimited, another implementation which is compatible (as a
configurable option) with both Bitcoin SV and Bitcoin ABC
rule sets.
Yet suddenly on the November 15
upgrade date, a huge wave of hash magically came to support Bitcoin
ABC. This came from Bitcoin.com's pool which announced it was
boosting its BCH hash for only 24 hours, by moving customer hash
from the BTC chain. In addition, Bitcoin ABC is receiving more
support from "rented" or subsidized from BTC mining pools
controlled by (Antpool.com, BTC.com, ViaBTC) or friendly (BTC.top)
to Bitmain. To obtain rented hash, Bitmain must pay to subsidize
the difference in lower revenue miners receive on the BCH chain
when total hash rate grows, compared to mining on the more
profitable BTC network. BTC.top's CEO Jiang Zhuoer estimates this can cost over
100 million yuan or USD $14 million per day. The rented hash supporting
Bitcoin ABC is temporary, and will leave the BCH network when not
subsidized. This is a losing proposition for Bitmain; each day a
hash war continues, Bitmain must pay millions of dollars to give
Bitcoin ABC an artificial advantage. But when Bitmain can no longer
afford to pay for it, the rented hash will leave BCH and Bitcoin SV
will again dominate by virtue of its long-term, sustained hash
support.
In contrast, Bitcoin SV's support comes from CoinGeek and
nChain's BMG mining groups, which are 100% dedicated to support
Bitcoin SV with their genuine hash. SVPool, a personal
initiative of nChain Chief Scientist Craig
Wright and the newly-formed Mempool also run Bitcoin SV;
those pools gather miners supporting the Satoshi Vision and do not
pay added subsidies to miners beyond the amount actually earned
from participating in their pools.
Ayre explained why sustained hash power should decide:
"Bitcoin is about Proof of Work (PoW), not Proof of Rented
Hash (PoRH). To decide which chain should be the true
Bitcoin BCH, you should pick the longest chain with the most
legitimate, sustained Proof of Work invested. It
is ridiculous to count transient, rented hash which comes onto BCH
artificially for short bursts of time because it is subsidized to
do so, but then disappears and does not really sustain Proof of
Work on the network. That is like paying a person to show up
in a foreign country to vote in a political election, without
meeting citizenship requirements to vote. At CoinGeek's BCH Miners
Choice Summit on November 2, we were
offered thousands and thousands of petahash to rent for this
battle. While we can afford to pay for more rented hash than
Bitmain can, we decided to set a better precedent for Bitcoin and
fight with honest hash invested to support BCH long term."