Speculation is a legitimate use-case for currencies, in addition to the more commonly cited means of exchange, store of value, and unit of account. We as a community ignore this use case at our own peril, especially since a higher price (through better understanding of BCH’s vibrant value proposition) sets in motion a positive cycle that includes better on-chain security, better mileage on BCH being exchanged for goods and services (also bootstrapping the MOE use case further).
As an example, every time you book a vacation somewhere in a couple months’ time, you are essentially short that destination’s currency against your local currency (e.g. betting that our USD will appreciate versus the EUR ahead of a trip to Paris), and if humans were perfectly rational instead of being praxeologically lazy, we’d be hedging that exposure in the amount of whatever we think we’ll spend over that trip ahead of time, yet almost nobody does this, choosing instead to have a little of that FX exposure in play into the vacation.
What is true for individuals applies to the same types of humans that manage money as well (estimates for FX trading volumes suggest 95% of trades are speculative in nature, vs only ~5% of flows being driven by "real" usage such as corporate hedging and treasury management), and once we accept that speculative use is nevertheless a potential source of attention and capital inflows into BCH, the current frontrunner for global permissionless electronic cash, the doors open to the importance of better positioning BCH ahead of the next bull-run to not only everyday users, but also the allocators of the billions of dollars of investable assets that have yet to discover BCH for themselves, and given the relatively lower liquidity of BCH vs. BTC, positively impact the price discovery process (since ultimately, informed speculative activity requires an understanding of future value capture, which BCH has the best promise compared to competitors in-market).
Understandably we are battle-scarred, tired, and wary of outsiders given the 2 major battles that have tested BCH during its inception and more recently with the BSV split, but we should be wary of the risk of alienating future buyers, users, and yes even HODLers through ill-conceived attempts in service of honest ends, like the BTC.top proposal has been, since it gives the impression of discord, uncertainty, and nothing gets priced in faster at a discount than uncertainty (as if the supply step-down wasn’t enough excitement this year). Specifically, I believe that BCH’s underperformance and subsequent recovery both on a BTC ratio and USD basis as the initial proposal was digested, and then met subsequent opposition, including Bitcoin.com’s public reconsideration, is an important window into the views of the market majority who has typically stayed quiet, but demands respect.
Luckily, some good has come from the recent controversy that I find encouraging. Myself, and others that are supportive of the use, and have invested in the BCH protocol but have been prompted to speak out and share our own thoughts of the best way forward – honest / well-intentioned participation is always a positive. While the “silent majority” of BCH supporters may not have the sway of some of the early participants in the original BTC ecosystem nor the hashpower to throw around, but it looks like the community’s response has resulted in all parties realizing the need to take a more measured approach to solving the problem of dev funding. I look forward to seeing how we come together to ultimately get a better proposal over the finish line in the coming months.
I agree speculative bubbles support BCH in the long run. I think this assumption that recent price behavior was due to announcing the developer funding and then "cancelling" the plan ignores the timing of and great upward price movements happening on BCH during this time span:
I would guess this is an attempt to rewrite history for future social engineering efforts to call upon.