The Real Cause of the Bitcoin vs. Bitcoin Cash Divide
Why do people resent those who disagree with them slightly more than those who disagree with them entirely?
A question I get asked frequently from people interested in learning about blockchain technology is “what’s the difference between Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash?” Not having a vested interest in either, the most honest answer I can give them is: “not much.”
After all, both are cryptocoins that derive their legitimacy from a distributed and decentralized ledger that uses a proof-of-work consensus mechanism. They have the same encryption algorithm and inflation schedule. They even share the same exact transaction history up until last year’s fork.
Sure, there are some fundamental differences, like the bigger block size of Cash or SegWit implementation of the original, but if you compare the two coins to more traditional kinds of money, or even most other cryptocoins, it’s easy to conclude that they have more in common than not. If you think that Bitcoin is great, then a reasonable opinion on Cash would be that it’s almost great.
But that’s not what you hear from the avid supporters (not to mention core developers) of either coin. Instead, words like “fraud” or “illegimtiate” get thrown around, and unsubstantiated conspiracy theories are trotted out to try to explain the motivations of the other side.
This is an odd situation, especially since the same people seldom offer a strong opinion on the countless other cryptocoins out there — many of which differ wildly from either implementation of Bitcoin.
There is a long history of this kind of “resentment between those who disagree slightly” in human affairs. In politics, primary contests between the members of the same party are often nastier than the eventual general election between two distinct ideologies. In religion, the worst violence usually occurs between different sects of the same faith. Far more blood has been spilled over the centuries between Protestants and Catholics, or Sunnis and Shiites, than Christians and Muslims.
To understand where this antagonism comes from, it helps to look at situations where sectarianism is not pronounced. Engineers, for one, don’t get into brawls about what kind of bridge design supports the most weight, and tennis players don’t argue about who the true champion is. Why? Because bridges either fall down or they don’t, and Wimbledon always ends with a clear winner.
In other words, when there is a definitive resolution in sight, people tend to be humble and more open to a different point of view. It’s the thornier and seemingly unanswerable questions, like how much power the Pope should have, or how much memory a block should take up, that can turn neighbors (or coders) against each other. In these situations, those that disagree with someone just a little are the greatest reminder that deep down inside, they themselves have no way of being sure.
The real reason why the Bitcoin and Cash maximalists dislike each other so much is because none of them are certain of the answers when it comes to the Big Questions, so they take their uncertainties out on the other side. It’s an experience we’ve all had at some point in our lives, and paradoxically, the smaller the difference in question, the bigger the bitterness.
Lightening might be a perfect scaling solution, or not. Even if it does work, it might still benefit from a bigger block size/weight at some point down the road, in the same way that a 32mb blocked-sized Bitcoin might still want off-chain payment channels for micro-transactions. It’s too soon to know for sure, and to claim otherwise is to be historically ignorant of all of the pivoting that had to be done to get either coin this far.
All technology evolves in an unpredictable fashion. Given how this technology is trying to tackle some of society’s thorniest issues, like money and trust, it will probably need more pivots and rethinks than most. As a non-denominational believer in Bitcoin, I’m glad that there are two distinct implementations of it being carried out by very intelligent people. Trying both scaling solutions is the only way we’ll find out the best way forward. Anyone that says otherwise is speaking more to their own insecurities than the facts.
