Bitcoinist spoke with Bitcoin Cash advocate and owner of Bitcoin.com, Roger Ver, about the BCH ‘hash war,’ his controversial website branding of Bitcoin (BTC) as ‘Bitcoin Core,’ and why he believes Bitcoin developers are “economically illiterate.”
Bitcoinist: Bitcoin Cash just went thru a ‘hash war’ with Craig Wright/Ayre splitting off to a new chain called Bitcoin Cash SV. Can you share your reflections on the recent hard fork?
Roger Ver: Craig and I don’t have any disagreement. It seems strange that the media is trying to frame it that way.
What developments does Bitcoin Cash have in the pipeline now? What are you most excited about?
I’m most excited about oracle.bitcoin.com that will be launching in full soon. It will result in censorship resistant exchanges, sports betting and much more. I’m also very excited about our Coin Shuffle privacy tool coming to the Bitcoin.com wallet very soon.
Is Bitcoin Cash open to a Lightning Network type of scaling solution, sidechains etc. in the future?
I’ve never been opposed to any of those things. In fact, I’ve provided more funding for both Lightning and Side Chains than just about anyone else. I’m only opposed to the insane BTC block space production quota still being advocated for by a bunch of economically ignorant software engineers who need to pick up an economics book.
Given your commerce adoption focus, how interested are merchants in accepting BCH right now? Why? How many currently accept BCH worldwide?
Obviously, they are very interested as shown by the fact that Bitpay has provided full support for BCH on their platform. More than 100,000 websites are currently accepting BCH, and likely more physical shops are accepting BCH than BTC now.
Many Bitcoin proponents argue that Satoshi’s anonymity and disappearance give it an advantage over other coins that have known founders or de facto community leaders. Do you agree? In this sense, is Bitcoin Cash at a disadvantage since many would consider Roger Ver a leader of sorts given your popularity?
I reject the premise. I didn’t start BCH, and I’m not the leader. I’m just one of many users although I may be louder than most.
Bitcoin Core believes that Bitcoin’s goal is to become digital gold.
Bitcoin Cash believes that Bitcoin’s goal is to become a global currency.
— Roger Ver (@rogerkver) December 3, 2018
You recently stated that “Bitcoin Core believes that Bitcoin’s goal is to become digital gold. Bitcoin Cash believes that Bitcoin’s goal is to become a global currency.“ But Satoshi wrote that Bitcoin is “more typical of a precious metal.” Why do you prioritize adoption in commerce over SoV? Doesn’t this also run counter to the evolution of money stages as a collectible->store of value->currency->unit of account?
I reject the evolution of money cycle that you have laid out. Money is simply the most commonly accepted barter good. The dollar is the world’s most popular store of value because you can spend it anywhere. If Bitcoin had been allowed to continue to be spendable anywhere, it could have become the world’s most popular store of value.
Instead, the economically ignorant BTC camp have intentionally undermined BTC’s usefulness in commerce and unwittingly undermined its usefulness as a store of value.
I laid it out in detail very clearly in this video that has aged very well.
Your website Bitcoin dot com states: “Buy Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Bitcoin Core (BTC) with a credit card.” Critics say you are intentionally mislabeling BTC as Bitcoin Core, the name of the Bitcoin software client, to get new users to buy BCH. There have also been reports of people wanting to buy BTC but mistakenly buying BCH instead. How do you respond?
BCH has more Bitcoin-ness about it than BTC, so it doesn’t make sense to call BTC Bitcoin. The website is labeled very clearly, and we have never had a single report from an actual customer making a mistake.
BTC fees have been at the lowest in years this year. Moreover, on October 16, a Bitcoin user moved 29,999 BTC worth $194 million with a $0.1 fee. Why do you state, based on your recent tweets, that Bitcoin (BTC) has “full blocks” and “high fees”?
By intentional design of the “Core Developers”, they want Bitcoin to have high fees and full blocks. If the fees are currently low, then they are failing at what they have set out to accomplish. Either way, they are incompetent.
BCH price is currently at record-lows in USD and BTC terms and down over 96% from all-time highs. What’s the reason? Hash war? Lack of adoption? Overall bearish crypto market? A combination of factors?
Obviously, it is a combination of factors. The market is made up of millions of participants with their own needs, desires, and goals.
Do you hold more BCH than BTC?
Of course. BTC’s future is dim with the misguided economic code being promoted.
What’s your BCH price prediction for 2019?
I don’t know, and neither does anyone else.
What are your thoughts on Roger Ver’s comments? Share them below!
Images courtesy of Shutterstock, Wikipedia.org
