BCH vs BTC Debate Tips in Favor of BCH
The main problem with Bitcoin is its inability to scale effectively. Bitcoin exists within a network of computers called Blockchain. The very fact that the system is decentralized makes it a revolutionary technology. But this also makes the Bitcoin network slow. This central problem of scaling and increasing the speed of the transaction verification process led to the community to incorporate a technology called Segregated Witness called SegWit. SegWit makes the amount of data that needs to be verified in each block smaller, by removing signature data from the block of data that needs to be processed in each transaction and having it attached in an extended block.
Bitcoin Cash was started by bitcoin miners and developers who were not much in favor of segregated witness technology. These individuals argued that the SegWit did not address the fundamental problem of scalability in a meaningful way, nor did it follow the roadmap initially outlined by Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous party that first proposed the blockchain technology behind cryptocurrency. Moreover, the process of introducing SegWit as a solution was not transparent, and there were concerns that its introduction undermined the decentralization and democratization of the currency.
The ensuing conflict in the Bitcoin community led to a hard fork in August of 2017. Hard Fork is a permanent divergence from the previous version of Blockchain, and the miners through this effectively created a new currency called Bitcoin cash. Bitcoin cash instead implemented an increased block size of 8mb, to accelerate the verification process, with an adjustable level of difficulty in ensuring the chain’s survival and transaction verification speed, regardless of the number of miners supporting it.
In the latest episode of Bitcoin.com’s YouTube channel, which featured Bitcoin Jesus, Gabriel Cardona – the Director of Developer Services and head of R&D at Bitcoin Cash, Aska Eiki – a BCH promoter in Japan, Emil Oldenburg – the CTO of Bitcoin.com and Bitcoin.com CEO, Roger Ver, things became a little too heated.
The conversation veered from Elon Musk and Samsung S10 inevitably into a debate between BTC and BCH. The trigger was the conversation about tipping Services platform, Tippin.me, powered by Bitcoin and the Lightning Network [LN]. Tipping.me had started to allow users to send and receive Bitcoins through the LN using their custodial wallets. Gabriel Cardona said that the fever around the LN is mostly by newbies who were not present when the “scaling debate happened in 2014-15.” The panel agreed with him that due to several social media campaigns and censorship, people are misguided to think that the LN is better. Cardona claimed that LN is degrading compared to BCH.
Cardona added that the BCH model would work better than Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, post their update which will see the adoption of Schnorr Signatures. Cardona said that “Anything BTC can do, BCH can do it better” to which Roger Ver nodded in agreement. Cardona claimed that proponents of BTC were blinded by branding and were ignoring what the real value of cryptocurrencies is.
