WPA6021602IMG
Jen Wieczner
Jen Wieczner 2018年5月5日
The great Bitcoin fork of 2017—when the original blockchain split last August to create Bitcoin Cash—appears to have ended pleasantly, at least for investors. The sum of the parts turned out to be greater than the whole: Within a week of the split, the two assets together were worth more than $15 billion in additional market value that didn’t exist prior to the fork.
Far away from Wall Street, however, the schism—which came about when two factions couldn’t agree on whether to speed up transaction times by expanding the size of units on the blockchain (Bitcoin Cash favoring larger blocks)—is still seething. There are signs the rift is growing more acrimonious, threatening to polarize the Bitcoin community around the world.
I witnessed the bitterness of the so-called scaling debate when I visited Tokyo in late March to report on new twists in the saga of Mt. Gox, the hacked Bitcoin exchange, for my latest magazine feature, “Mt. Gox and the Surprising Redemption of Bitcoin’s Biggest Villain”. There I found that much of the once tight-knit community had since become alienated by the Bitcoin Cash split.
I’m not going to analyze the technical merits of the scaling debate—regarding the speed and cost of transactions—here today, both for the sake of brevity and because the latest flare-ups have been less technological and more philosophical: The Bitcoin-Bitcoin Cash battles are now often over ethics, censorship, transparency, and even the political parties of their supporters.
Sign up: Click here to subscribe to the The Ledger, Fortune’s weekly newsletter on the intersection of finance and tech.
Case in point: Coincall, a portfolio tracking site for cryptocurrency investors, this week labeled Bitcoin Cash a “shitcoin” for “intentionally misleading newcomers to believe it’s the ‘real’ Bitcoin, for example by misusing bitcoin.com and the @bitcoin Twitter handle.” (Last month, scandal arose after the @bitcoin account appeared to endorse Bitcoin Cash, and was subsequently suspended by Twitter.) But even if those criticisms are accurate, they have nothing to do with whether or not Bitcoin Cash is actually faster, cheaper or easier to use than Bitcoin.
In Tokyo, however, Bitcoin Cash now seems to dominate the Bitcoin scene: Supporters have their own meetups; their own bars accepting Bitcoin Cash—they even have their own Satoshi Nakamoto, an Australian named Craig Wright. (Wright, though, has failed to irrefutably prove that he is the mysterious creator of Bitcoin—and others have offered evidence debunking Wright’s claims.)
My trip coincided with the Satoshi’s Vision Conference, an event that makes the case that Bitcoin Cash is the true Bitcoin. At a happy hour following the conference, people exclaimed “Make Bitcoin great again!” One guest called out to a woman carrying a baby: “Future big-blocker right there!”
They aren’t joking around. “This is war,” said Aaron Gutman, an organizer of the Tokyo Bitcoin Cash meetup. Proponents predict the coming of what they call “the flippening”—when Bitcoin Cash will displace Bitcoin as the most valuable cryptocurrency, and be recognized as the “real” Bitcoin. They claim they’ve been unfairly persecuted by the Bitcoin majority, that their posts about Bitcoin Cash have been deleted from the main Reddit Bitcoin forum.
At the center of the controversy is Roger Ver, an early Bitcoin evangelist living in Tokyo and CEO of Bitcoin.com who has now thrown the full weight of his support behind Bitcoin Cash. “They called him the ‘Bitcoin Jesus,’” says J. Maurice, who runs the Tokyo-based Bitcoin mining company WIZ, and used to consult for Ver, but has since become estranged. “Now he’s like the Bitcoin Judas.”
To see how the Tokyo rift is spreading, look no further than a CNBC article from a couple of weeks ago bearing the headline, “Forget bitcoin. Now is the time to buy bitcoin cash: Crypto trader.” The article is based on an interview with Brian Kelly, CEO of investment firm BKCM. But Kelly didn’t actually advise against Bitcoin, and in fact owns both it and Bitcoin Cash. “I’m not taking sides,” he said in the same interview. “I just want to make money.”
He has that in common with most New York crypto investors I know. And if your goal is purely to make money, Bitcoin Cash has lately been a better bet than Bitcoin: In the past month, the Bitcoin Cash price is up some 115%, while the Bitcoin price has risen 30% by comparison.
But as for the potential flippening, it still seems a long way off: Today the value of Bitcoin Cash is worth just under 16% of the total value of Bitcoin—barely more than the 14% it was worth when it was created. I won’t say it can’t happen. But first it would help to at least have an open and honest debate.
This article originally appeared in the The Ledger, Fortune’s weekly newsletter on the intersection of finance and tech. Subscribe here.
去年8月，原始Bitcoin分拆的2017大比特币叉（Bitcoin）分叉似乎已经很好地结束了，至少对投资者来说已经结束了。部分的总和被证明是大于整个：在一个星期的分裂，这两个资产合计价值超过150亿美元的额外市场价值，DDNWPA60300 7QTET存在之前的叉子。然而，在远离华尔街的情况下，当两个派别之间的分歧发生时，PAP6037QTET就是否通过扩大B股链上的单位（比特币青睐较大的块）的规模来加速交易时间仍然是一致的。有迹象表明，裂痕越来越尖锐，威胁到世界各地比特币社区的极化。当我在3月下旬访问东京时，我亲眼目睹了所谓的规模化辩论的苦涩，报告了Gox的传奇故事，即被黑客攻击的比特币交易所，为我最新的杂志特色WPAP60300 4QTET。GOX和比特币最大的恶果WAP60606QTE的惊人赎回。在那里，我发现，曾经一度紧密联系的社区中，大部分已经被比特币现金分割所疏远。IWPA606077QTEM不打算分析关于今天的交易速度和成本的缩放辩论的技术优点，两者都是为了简洁起见，因为最新的炫耀已经不那么技术化和更具哲理性：比特币比特币的现金战现在正在进行。十关于道德、审查、透明度，甚至他们支持者的政党。注册：点击此处订阅Ledger，财富周刊上的财务和技术交叉点。例子：恰巧，一个投资组合追踪网站的加密投资者，本周标记为比特币现金WPAP0300 4QTESTHICONWPAP60300 6QTE的WPAP603故意误导新来者相信WPAP60300 8QQTeEALWPAP60300 7QTE比特币，例如误用BitCONIN和@ Bitcoin Twitter手提。WPAP60300 6QTE（上个月，丑闻出现后，@比特币帐户似乎认可比特币现金，并下注。但是，如果这些批评是准确的，它们与比特币现金是否比比特币更快、更便宜或更容易无关。然而，在东京，比特币现金现在似乎主导了比特币的场景：支持者们有他们自己的聚会；他们自己的酒吧接受比特币现金，他们甚至有自己的Satoshi Nakamoto，澳大利亚人叫Craig Wright。（尽管莱特没有确凿地证明他是比特币的神秘创造者，而其他人则提供证据推翻WritWTP60607QTES的声明。）我的这次访问恰逢SATOSHIWPAP60300 7QTES视觉会议，这是一个使比特币成为现金的事件。是真正的比特币。在会议结束后的一个愉快的时刻，人们惊呼WPAP60300 4QTAMBIT比特币再次伟大！WPAP60300 6QTE一位客人打电话给一位抱着婴儿的妇女：WPAP60300 4QTEND大阻拦就在那里！WPA60606QTE他们ArnWPA60607QTET开玩笑。WPA60304QTETIS是战争，WPAP60300 6QTE说，Aaron Gutman，东京比特币现金MeitUp的组织者。支持者们预测，当比特币现金取代比特币作为最有价值的密码时，WPAP60300 4QTETFLIPPENIN WPAP60300 6QTE即将到来，并被公认为WPA60604QTeEALWPAP60300 6QTE比特币。他们声称他们的WPAP60300 7QTEVE受到比特币多数人的不公平的迫害，他们关于比特币现金的帖子已经从主要的ReitDitBitcoin论坛删除。争论的焦点是Roger Ver，一位生活在东京的早期比特币传道者和BitoCiNo.com的首席执行官，他现在在Bitcoin的现金背后投下了他全部的支持。WPA60604QTETE称他为WPA60608QTitB币J. Maurice，WPAP60300 6QTE说，他经营着东京的比特币矿业公司WIZ，并曾为Ver咨询过，但后来变得疏远了。WPA60604Q-QTUNOW，他就像比特币犹他。WPAP60300 6QTE，看看东京裂谷是如何蔓延，看不远比CNBC文章从几个星期前的标题，WPA60604QT遗忘Bitcoin。现在是时候购买比特币现金：密码贸易。WPAP60300 6QTE的文章是基于采访Brian Kelly，投资公司BKCM的首席执行官。但凯莉DDNWPA60307QTET实际上反对比特币，事实上它拥有比特币和比特币。WPA60304QTEIWPAP60300 7QTEM不采取方，WPA60606QTE他在同一次采访中说。WPA60304QTEI只是想赚钱。WPAP60300 6QTE他和我们所知道的大多数纽约密码投资者有共同之处。如果你的目标纯粹是为了赚钱，比特币现金比比特币最近是一个更好的赌注：在过去的一个月里，比特币的现金价格上涨了115%，而比特币的价格则上升了30%。但是，对于潜在的翻转，它似乎还有很长的路要走：今天比特币现金的价值仅低于比特币的总价值的16%，几乎不超过它创造的价值的14%。我想PAP60300 7QTET说它是CANWPA60607QTET发生的。但首先，这将有助于至少有一个公开和诚实的辩论。这篇文章最初出现在《财富》周刊上的《金融与技术》的《Ledger》周刊上。nbsp；
SPONSORED FINANCIAL CONTENT
You May Like
赞助财务内容你可能喜欢