The post originally appeared on Medium and we republished with permission from Unwriter.
Disclaimer: Before I go in, I want to say, if you are a Bitcoin application developer who happen to belong to any of the groups or organizations I am about to criticize here, I have nothing personal against you. I know all your hearts are in the right place. Its your group thats messed up, not you personally. Remember, you have choice. You can get out. I actually would like for you to read my post, step back, and think about why you are here. I would love to be on the same team as you, collaborating. What we have created so far with Bitcoin Cash is too precious to throw away. And this is why I speak.
From November 15 to 26 the Bitcoin Cash network went through its most important experiment since the inception of Bitcoin itself.
The so-called Bitcoin Hash War lasted about two weeks and moved in a direction that many people didnt expect Many people expected Bitcoin SV to make an aggressive re-org attack but that never happened. However what came out of the other side is the problem I will discuss in this post.
Bitcoin ABC was so afraid of an imaginary attack from SV that they made all kinds of mistakes, writing permanent code in rapid fire releases to the point where what they stand for is no longer recognizable.
And THIS ABCs self-inflicted scars that will forever exist immutably on the blockchain has led to a blockchain I can no longer build on.
I normally dislike writing because I would rather spend time building, and I prefer showing by doing, but at this time I realize I am in a very unique position of being the ONLY developer in the entire Bitcoin Cash ecosystem who has deliberately stayed politically unbiased, so I decided to contribute to the next phase.
Who is _unwriter?
First some background, heres who I am:
I work on two useful infrastructure projects in Bitcoin Cash ecosystem:
1. BitDB: Decentralized Database for Bitcoin https://bitdb.network
2. BitSocket: Realtime Message Bus for Bitcoin https://bitsocket.org
They power bitcoin applications such ascraft.cash,oyo.cash,trends.cash,matter,simple ledger protocol,memopay.xyz, and many more you probably have heard of at least once if youre a Bitcoin Cash user.
Next, about my identity. I proudly have exactly zero moral hazard. I have exactly zero conflict of interest. I am unaffiliated with ANY of the actors in the Bitcoin Cash ecosystem. There is exactly 0 person who knows who I am. Nobody has met me, nobody knows my voice, nobody funded me, I took donations from nobody, I have zero debts from anyone in the Bitcoin Cash ecosystem, both figuratively and literally.
I have only created what Bitcoin needed, and will continue to do so. There are some very exciting projects on the way I will soon release. And you will learn that BitDB, Bitquery, and Bitsocket have just been preludes to what Im actually trying to build.
Lastly, I am expressing myself here NOT as a follower, but as a chooser. I am choosing the blockchain I choose. I only pick the most superior blockchain because my projects deserve better.
Is this enough credibility for you? Or are you going to call me a shill and close this page? If you are a rational person, at least try to read till the end, because all I want is to collaborate with all of you and move forward in the right direction instead of fighting. And no matter which situation youre in, its not too late. You decide.
The importance of Capitalists in Bitcoin
I posted a public message to Bitcoin application developers last week:
The application developers are the capitalists of the nation of Bitcoin. And THEY are the ones who determine the wealth of the nation. Wise capitalists dont follow the herd. They notice opportunities and act on them.
I have been saying this that Bitcoin needs to attract application developers and the only way to do so is by signaling dedication to scalability, stability and openness instead of adding some new feature from the beginning. Below is an excerpt from an interview from back in July:
Note the last sentence in the excerpt:
they dont want to wake up one day to find that the rules of the game have changed overnight and all their effort has gone to waste.
And indeed, the rules of the game have changed in Bitcoin Cash. It is no longer the Bitcoin I signed up for.
Is Bitcoin Cash the real Bitcoin?
There is something very wrong with Bitcoin Cash ABC and its community today. There is too much misinformation out there, and people seem too willing to believe anything if it comes from some influencer guy who they see as respected by the community, even when they have no idea why they are respected by the community in the first place.
In this article I will explain what ABC has irreversibly turned itself into:
1. Censorable
2. Centralized
3. Unstable
4. Death of Permissionless Innovation
5. Anti Bitcoin Maximalist
I hope my perspective will be helpful for many application developers out there who are still confused about what they should do going forward.
Rid yourself from social obligations and social pressure. If your ideas are influenced by your employer, social clique, or by your past behaviors, try to be aware of this and think independently. You have choice. You can even leave your job and get a new one if you realize your employer doesnt stand for what you signed up for when you got into Bitcoin.
Just think about WHY you are here in the first place.
That said, what IS wrong with Bitcoin ABC?
1. Censorable
Heres a serious issue most ABC supporters seem to deliberately ignore out of cognitive dissonance, or because of misinformation.
Bitcoin Cash ABC has effectively become censorable. Yes, the very quality Bitcoin stands for censorship resistant money is dead on the ABC chain. you just cant see it yet.
The manner in which the centralized checkpointing was executed throughout the war should be a serious risk to any developer considering building on top of Bitcoin ABC.
This whole scheme of centralized checkpointing was powered by a cartel of crypto exchanges behind closed doors. This is not only immoral (in terms of Bitcoins morality), but potentially illegal AND makes the coin vulnerable even in the real world sense. And it is this real world aspect I would like to discuss, since this is a very real risk. Morality is subjective, but risk is real.
Heres a recorded livestream video where they explain, step by step, how this capture the ticker mission was accomplished by a cartel of ABC developers and crypto exchanges (instead of through Proof of Work):
Whats interesting about this centralized checkpoint is that it provides both the reason AND the means for a powerful adversary to take down the network in the future. They simply need to attack the associated ABC cartel, leveraging the centralized checkpoint to do whatever they want to the chain once compromised. And you wouldnt even know what went on as a user.
Of course I can already hear many people saying Shut up you shill, thats all just theory and is unlikely to happen!, but if you know anything about crypto or security, the rule of thumb is to be always paranoid than sorry, because crypto never forgets. And blockchain never forgets. A vulnerability once created never goes away.
Another rule is, where there is vulnerability there will be exploit. This is inevitable. Its just a matter of when. If you dont believe me, just ask Ethereum, their infamous DAO hack vulnerability had been known for a while but nobody thought it would actually happen for whatever reason.
Until it did.
Remember, if it can happen, it WILL happen, especially if its related to money and security.
Another lesson we can learn from Ethereums DAO hack is how the Ethereum team handled the hack afterwards.
Instead of moving on without messing with the economy, the core Ethereum team and the insiders decided to bail out the casualties of the hack, thereby saving some of the important early members of the Ethereum community.
This is why ETH and ETC (Ethereum Classic) split into two. ETC made up of people who believed in the principle, and ETH made up of people who have made a compromise. This demonstrated how a centralized protocol development team can play Keynes and roll back the ledger through powerful oligarchic actors conspiring with one another.
And this is where a lot of early Ethereum investors lost faith in the project.
It had turned into crony capitalism, as can be seen in the excerpt below:
I hope some of you are starting to see the parallels by now.
So, after all this, obviously I dont feel comfortable building my entire infrastructure empire on top of something that can be seized by various unknown gatekeeper adversaries without me even realizing whats going on.
Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but if it can happen, it WILL happen, even if its after decades. Its just a matter of time. Thats NOT sound money. Its money with insecurities.
Ask yourself: Why would I want to build on something that can go down or be manipulated just like that one day? I am building something that will last forever, so this is already game over in my eyes.
2. Centralized
There are many aspects of centralization, but here I will only discuss the protocol development centralization which ABC has finally achieved through this war.
In the past you may have heard some anti bitcoin cash people criticize how Bitcoin Cash development is centralized. To be clear, this has never been the case, at least until this hash war. There were plenty of developers working on multiple implementations that follow the same Bitcoin Cash protocol, such as Bitcoin ABC, Bitcoin Unlimited, Bitcoin XT, Bitprim, Flowee, etc.
But today, while these multiple implementations still DO exist and may even look like they are doing fine, they will only exist as ghosts of their past.
As of today, no one can deny the reality that the only client that has the ultimate power in Bitcoin Cash is Bitcoin ABC. Everyone else has become decimated to the point where they simply function as a follower client. ABC doesnt even need to discuss anything with the other teams. They can simply add new features arbitrarily in a permission-less manner, and push it out.
You can see this in action with the last couple of releases where ABC has added adjustable checkpoint system (with a default of 10 blocks) WITHOUT even consulting any other developer team. You can watch the outrage over at Bitcoin Unlimited forum:
Theres an internal conflict going on there those who are too deep in the game with ABC that they fail to see the problem, and those who are calling them out but I dont think this will have any effect because these people have no influence under the new Bitcoin ABC puppet state regime.
3. Unstable
Bitcoin ABC is no longer sound money. There are so many things, but Ill just list out a few that make it a dealbreaker for me:
First, these various reactionary amendments written into the constitution of Bitcoin Cash in order to defend against some imaginary attacks from Bitcoin SV that may or may not have even existed should be a huge red flag. The war started last week with version 0.18.1, but after just a week its already at 0.18.5. And according to their development repository, theyve already finished 0.18.6 last week. So well probably see another release soon.
Second, these amendments have added needless technical debt and serious security vulnerabilities, which is why theyve been releasing patch after patch to fix the bugs they introduced with the patch before. The reckless rapid fire releases resulted in the network being split among multiple nodes, each with different versions of rules (Im only talking about ABC clients, imagine what this means for other clients like Bitcoin Unlimited who have to keep up with following these patches every day to stay in the game. And as far as I know, Bitcoin Unlimited was the only client that has even attempted to follow ABCs continuous delivery).
I think these follower node developers (Bitcoin Unlimited, etc.) may have some irrational hope that this power dynamic will change somehow in the future, but this time its different. Youve lost the moment you let ABC upgrade with a centralized checkpointing system and conspire with external actors to execute on their goal. You have not given power to ABC, but to external centralized actors.
Lastly, now with Bitcoin SV gone and no one to provide checks and balances, theyre happily adding all kinds of bells and whistles to Bitcoin. For example, here you see the code for Avalanche also known as the infamous Pre-consensus on their master branch.
I know many ABC supporters will say this is not really a big deal because its just being used for mempool synchronization, but you have no idea what kind of economic implication this will have. Economics is subtle, this is why classical and Austrian economists always say When in doubt, Laissez-faire. Things like this is whats called Keynesian and ABC is working very hard to achieve that status.
Unlike changing the block size limit, something like Avalanche changes the entire dynamic between the mempool and the blockchain, which is directly related to miners incentive, and one would be lying if he claimed to know exactly how this will turn out economically.
The first time Europeans brought gold from their foreign colonies they had no idea that would cause inflation. They just thought they would become rich. Obviously, you have more gold you become rich, right? And they did become rich, in the short term at least. But then inflation happened, and nobody knew what was going on.
Same with Bitcoin. Just because mempool becomes faster, doesnt mean youve succeeded. If the mempool synchronization becomes 1000 times faster but it completely messes up the economics of Bitcoin, its effectively a useless ledger. Congrats, you can now experience its uselessness 1000 times faster.
And dont forget, this is not something you can just complain about and it will go away. This Avalanche feature was the main reason why this entire hash war happened (also known as pre-consensus):
ABC cant give up on this feature because if they do, then it will be admitting they didnt know what they were doing. And that will mean they have lost everything for nothing. This is why they will very likely go ahead with this, and when this happens, one of the two scenarios will happen:
1. The community follows blindly so as not to rock the boat (Just like how the entire BTC camp is betting on Lightning and choosing to ignore all the red flags)
2. Some may DEFINITELY not like the change and decide to fork off again, therefore reversing adoption one more time (See the Bitcoin Unlimited forum for the early signs https://bitco.in/forum/threads/gold-collapsing-bitcoin-up.16/page-1301) But too late, ABC already has added all kinds of baggage and will have added even more by the time you realize you need to fork off.
Well, good luck to you, and I wish you the best with your coin, but either way its too unstable, and this is not Bitcoin.
And I only build on Bitcoin.
4. Death of Permissionless Innovation
One of the talking points of Bitcoin ABC camp has been Permissionless Innovation. Ironically, Bitcoin ABC is no longer a place for permissionless innovation either.
While everyone on team ABC seems to be very happy that they got the BCH ticker and proudly say the war was over even before it had started because of their coordination with the exchange cartel, they dont realize it is EXACTLY this point that makes Bitcoin ABC a deal breaker for any pragmatic application developer.
They have effectively turned themselves into crony capitalism blockchain.
What ABC has done by very successsfully pulling off this capture the ticker mission is they have demonstrated a textbook example of how a protocol developer can conspire with outside actors (a cartel of exchanges and centralized miners) to enforce centralized consensus, and do it so effectively that it even overrides the competition with a decentralized hash power. There exists no checks and balances, only the illusion of it.
This is pretty scary if you think about it. I know many people are afraid of centralization, but this is worse than centralization because it has the illusion of decentralization to the public yet it is centralized where no one can see it.
At least in centralized platforms they are completely transparent about their centralizedness, but crony capitalism looks just like capitalism to the outside world and crony decentralization looks just like decentralization to the outside world.
This means now you have to play politics and play nice with exchanges, miners, and the companies that control access to these actors such as Bitcoin.com, Bitmain, and Bitcoin ABC they are effectively the consensus makers.
It is exactly like the world you live in today, full of corruption. And Bitcoin was supposed to fix that.
I dont want to invest my time and resources working on a platform that can easily undermine my permissionless innovation anytime. For example, if you happen to build anything that competes with wormhole, expect it to get sidelined in various subtle ways, so subtle that you wont even realize it until it just hits you in the form of an ABC protocol update.
As an application developer, whatever you build can be overridden by this opaque cartel, just like how Twitter can always steer their open API to block their potential competitors from competing on equal terms on Twitter. (See Meerkat vs. Periscope)
And whats worse, the users will not even care that youre dead, they will witch hunt you and even try to silence you because they dont want to stir the pot and make the coin price go down. They will prefer the gatekeepers just win the war and carry on with no hiccup to the outside world. You can already see a glimpse of this in Reddit r/btc today.
Originally posted here: