First, I want to say that I believe that Bitcoin (BTC) will moon and that lambo will rain, for several reasons that I won’t explain here and now. So please don't shit on me or down vote this post without explaining yourself properly. I'm saying this because the crypto community is full of young and emotional person insulting each other all the time without being able to explain their view clearly. I’m just sharing my story and my opinion, if I say something wrong, please let me know. No need to be emotional.
My story: I’m French (Forgive my English), a software engineer, working from home, previously in the banking industry, big noob in blockchain code related. I have been supporting bitcoin for a couple of times now, unfortunately I discovered it a bit late, promoting it to people around me as the peer to peer cash system and hoping that it will give us our financial freedom.
During this bear market and after losing a big part of my coins, I finally took the time to get a better understanding of each coin I’m holding and I quickly realised that Bitcoin Cash wasn’t a scam, that Bitcoin BTC is purely a speculative asset, the playground of professional traders, used to rekt noobs and that Lightning network will end as custodial wallets because no one will take the time/risk for opening/closing/securing a channel, especially poor people (few billions). There is no benefit for the average user in maintaining a LN node. I believe it will be more interesting to mine Bitcoin rather than maintaining a LN node.
So basically, I lost faith in the promise made by the Lightning Network which made me focusing on why Bitcoin Cash is the answer to a decentralized peer-to peer electronic cash system. I can confess that in the past I used to believe that second layer solution was the solution for everything, but I changed my mind.
To make it simple, BCH allows to make instant payment for very cheap whereas BTC can’t and won’t.
For each crypto project, I look at those different points:
1. Length of the chain
BTC and BCH are sharing the longest chain, it has been working well without any issues since now 10 years. No other project has such a good track record. This make me feel confident that the chance that this will continue to work as well for years or decades.
2. Community behind it
A good community for me is when you see technical people, risking their reputation/identity by posting videos, writing stuff and talking in public events about the project they support. Based on that, I believe the BCH community is the biggest of all. By technical people I mean someone talking using technical approach to back their opinion rather than beliefs based on emotions. Usually in the crypto space, those people are developers but it’s not always the case.
I made a small list of technical people supporting BCH:
-Peter R. Rizun: Chief Scientist, Bitcoin Unlimited.
-Vitalik Butterin (he often showed his support regarding BCH but didn’t produce any content)
-Jonald Fyookball: Electron Cash Developer
-Jonathan Toomim: Bitcoin cash developer who made interesting proof regarding scaling onchain)
-George Hotz: no need to present this awesome crazy dude!
-Amaury Séchet: Bitcoin Cash Developer and French! 😊
-Rick Falkvinge: Founder of the swedish pirate party, watch his youtube channel.
-Gabriel Cardona (Bitcoin cash developer)
-Justin Bons : Founder & CIO of Cyber Capital
-Dr. Mark B. Lundeberg: Developer researcher
And there is a lot more, but those people are people that I personally trust for their work they shared and that I like following.
Recently we had the Bitcoin cash city conference, another event full of people supporting BCH, that kind of thing doesn’t happen with other crypto. So many brilliant people supporting BCH, how could it be possible that all those guys are supporting a scam or a shitcoin. As well, there is often meetups and conferences all over the world.
The developer community is not centralized, there is multiple teams (BitcoinABC, Bitcoin Unlimited, BCHD, Bcash, Bitcoin Verde…) independent of each other arguing sometimes about technical and political stuff, this ensure that developments and important decisions are not centralized. I find this very healthy. If a fork occurs, it’s not a problem, it will simply double your coin and allows two different ways of thinking to grow and compete. This won’t happen in Bitcoin (BTC) anymore, the way of thinking is centralized for BTC, they all share the same view: the segwit workaround + small block + layer 2 = (moon + lambo) in 18 months.
Regarding CSW, I don’t believe in this guy for now but maybe I’m wrong, maybe this guy is wrongly understood but based on all the things I know about him, he seems too complicated to be someone honest. Honesty comes with simplicity.
Finally, regarding Roger Ver: He is hated a lot and I still don't understand why, I feel sorry for him, I really tried my best to hate him like the crowd, but I couldn’t find any reasons. Many people are saying that he is lying and scamming people but none of them are technically able to explain why. It's really a crazy story and I understand why some people call him "Bitcoin Jesus". I personally think he is doing a great job and I thank him.
3. The current and future adoption
BCH is used by reel people and reel shops (check the bitcoin cash map), there are transactions on the network to buy and sell real things that exist in the real world. Can you believe this? Maybe the only blockchain having that. Please let me know if you know another blockchain which is today serving the real world.
The Bitcoin cash wallet app is easy and exciting to use. Same for the app for merchant. This can be used by my old mum! The BCH roadmap shows that more features will be added to simplify and enhance the user experience. I can’t find other blockchain having that level of user friendliness.
Recently Roger Ver announced HTC mobile phone with a BCH wallet preinstalled. I read as well that Burger King is accepting BCH, but I haven’t verified if this was legit or not.
4. Existing features and roadmap
-Multiple wallets built on all platform.
-Bitcoin Cash point of sales: this app is the app that merchant should use to accept Bitcoin, as well very easy to use and takes 5min to install.
-Cash shuffle with Cash fusion allowing to transact anonymously, making BCH competing with privacy focused coins such like Zcash, Monero, Dash. I heard this function will be implemented as well on mobile devices.
-SLP token: The simplicity of creating a token and sending dividends make BCH a bit competing with all smart blockchain. Anyone can create a token, raise funds and send dividends easily and it works! Will Bitcoin Cash evolve to a smart economy?
-memo.cash: A social network stored on the blockchain, fixing the problem of censorship we have on reddit for example. I recently discovered it, it’s awesome to know that you can write whatever you want, and nobody will be able to delete it and this forever. It’s really an awesome experience. I invite you to test it. For example, yesterday I had fun creating, sending token and being tipped in BCH or in any token by random people, it really shows the potential of BCH. I think I made around 50 on chain transactions in less than one hour with less than 10 cents.
-Stable coins: We can build stable coin on BCH; this is something very important as well.
Regarding the roadmap: It’s well described on bitcoincash.org and looks promising, but no update since the last 5 months. Not sure if it’s normal.
5. Security
SHA256 based algorithm are I believe the most secure, I don’t think we need to add more regarding this. Maybe someone can help me to find some downside regarding security, often some people talk about the potential 51% attack that could attack on BCH but I couldn’t manage to have my own opinion regarding this.
Regarding the double spending attack because of the zero confirmation, I have asked many people to explain to me how this could potentially be a problem for a real merchant. I think that small and insignificant amount doesn’t need instant confirmation but if you sell a lambo then of course you should wait for at least 5 confirmations.
To summarize I would even consider that zero conf is more advantageous than Lightning Network if you take everything into consideration. Worth case scenario if your restaurant is victim of a double spending attack a few times, you will just increase the confirmation level and prevent your customer from living your place. I think that it’s easier to print fake fiat money and try to pay with it rather than trying a double spending attack. But again, I might have misunderstood something or maybe there is more sophisticated exploits that I haven’t thought of.
6. Price
21 million coins, no inflation, the price currently around 300usd, a boiling community. The potential gains could be as good as BTC and even more. Maybe it’s the so waited coin that you will never convert back to that shit fiat. Certainly, one of the best coins to invest in now.
7. Electricity and efficiency
Since the cost of electricity is the same whatever the size of the block, it means that BCH is more environment friendly than BTC for the same amount of transaction or we can say that it’s "wasting" less energy. Maybe if LN works one day this will change.
My Conclusion:
Bitcoin is technically the worst coin; all others existing coins are better technically. But Bitcoin survives because of the network effect, illustrated by its biggest hash rate, making BTC the most secure blockchain. As well because of promises made by the Lightning Network. Bitcoin is the gold of crypto currencies. Bitcoin like Gold have both almost no utility. In a traditional market, gold drop when economy goes well and goes up when investors need to find a refuge. BTC is the drop zone for fresh meat.
Most of the BTC holders cannot think clearly regarding the BTC/BCH debate, they become completely irrational. This kind of behaviour leads to ruin, especially in trading/investment.With low fees, instant transaction, smart contracts, big community, user friendly apps, stable coin and a lot more to come, Bitcoin Cash has clearly a good future. I hope that someone will find my post useful. Cheers.