It seems the ongoing spat between Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash supporters will not be going away anytime soon. Although we saw a fair amount of mudslinging in 2017, things will only get more heated moving forward. On Twitter, @Bitcoin has posted an interesting comparison of both currencies. It is evident there is a lot of truth to this infographic, although there are sure to be some points of debate.
Bitcoin has a Fair few Issues
While most people still think Bitcoin is the greatest cryptocurrency in the world, we can’t afford to ignore some of its problems, especially since those problems have been present for quite some time now. Ever since the activation of SegWit on the Bitcoin network, not much has changed in terms of transaction fees and delays. This is mainly due to service providers struggling to integrate this code properly.
Whether or not that is a fundamental problem will always be subject to debate. Slowly but surely, more and more services will enable SegWit by default, but there is still a very long way to go. Until a majority of transactions are SegWit transactions, Bitcoin’s scaling problems will remain a topic of controversy. It’s also one of the ways in which some Bitcoin Cash supporters like to make fun of Bitcoin users.
The new infographic posted by @Bitcoin on Twitter will only add more fuel to the fire. Although there is – technically speaking – nothing wrong with the information provided, people will take offense to the line referring to Bitcoin as not being a digital currency. One could argue Bitcoin has become more of a store of value compared to an actual currency. At the same time, Bitcoin’s network still has more than sufficient transactions to be considered a currency first and foremost. It’s an interesting point of contention, to say the very least.
— Bitcoin (@Bitcoin) January 4, 2018
The same infographic also shows how Bitcoin Cash is superior to Bitcoin in many ways. Again, this is something people will have vastly different opinions about, although it’s hard to argue with some points from a technical point of view. Bitcoin simply has higher-than-normal transaction fees right now, its network confirmations are somewhat unreliable, and the coding aspect may not be as decentralized or permissionless as people would like. At the same time, this goes for pretty much all cryptocurrencies, and one could make similar arguments about Bitcoin Cash.
How all of these comparisons will work out in the long run has yet to be determined. From a pure price perspective, Bitcoin is still superior to Bitcoin Cash in every way. However, the market cap and price of a currency are not the only things giving it value. They are the two statistics which most people pay attention to, but they never tell the entire story. There’s a lot more to both Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash than either the technical side of things or their value as perceived by market makers and speculators.
In the end, these discussions will not cause any paradigm shifts. Bitcoin is still the original creation of Satoshi Nakamoto, even though some people may not agree with some of the introduced upgrades and changes in the code. Bitcoin Cash is, for all intents and purposes, an altcoin and will always be labeled as such until and unless it overtakes Bitcoin. When and if that will happen is anybody’s guess right now. Rest assured Bitcoin is far from a perfect currency, but Bitcoin Cash may not necessarily have all the answers either.
