I try not to think about what might have been
Cause that was then and we have taken diff'rent roads
We can't go back again there's no use giving in
And there's no way to know
What might have been

-Little Texas

What if the Fork Never Happened

I think this thought experiment is something many in the BCH space have pondered. It's something I've talked about with some Crypto friends all night long and when I go to BCH meetups or do interviews. Here are some things I've thought about (imagining a split never happened and we scaled appropriately):

• Where would adoption be for Bitcoin?

• Where would the price be?

• How would the narrative be different?

• How would the world and the financial system look today?

• Would merchant use and 3rd world adoption have reached critical mass and skyrocketed to the moon?

Like the song says, "we can't go back again," but I always ask myself:

• How crazy is it that all this contention was about basically one thing, the block size?

• How crazy is it that there was another split with BSV?

• Why couldn't a deflationary Crypto be used as P2P Cash? Wouldn't that be priced-in by merchants/sellers/buyers?

• Do BCH haters, especially in the BTC camp, understand economics/$$$?

• Why do you need SideChains, Layer2 Solutions, Off-Chain Solutions? Couldn't it scale as-is with improved memory, allowing many nodes to remain online?

It's really hard to see how that critical blocksize increase wasn't approved. It wasn't the first one. And as time has shown, BCH is doing fine as a Blockchain. There are still plenty of nodes and it's remained secure and decentralized. Although the price is lower than BTC, BCH is seeing more usage as a form of payment. Wasn't that the whole point of Bitcoin? And many people forget, the rights to the name could have gone the other way. Also, newbies to the space don't remember that the Flippening almost happened. Will it happen in the future? Only time will tell.

Whenever I think about it, I think about this song. It's possibly about a girl. But really, I'm convinced it was a premonitory somber ballad about a sad Crypto Day in the Summer of 2017. I could go on, but I try not to think about what might have been.

Circa One Year Post-Split: One Night in the Summer of 2018

Let me paint a picture for you. I've refilled my lowball with my favorite local whiskey, to the brim. I'm stoically leaning on the railing of my patio, staring out at the water in front of me, my back to the Atlantic Ocean. The aforementioned song playing in my headphones. I've got Crypto in my right pocket, complemented by 3 Morgan Silver Dollars in my left. As I puff on a cigar, I imagine a world without a split in the Blockchain...a solitary drop slowly rolls down my cheek as I finish my cigar and casually swirl the last remaining swig of whiskey in a counterclockwise fashion.

Full Disclosure: This may (or may not) have happened.

For better or worse, this is where things are. BTC is now the Store-of-Value, Settlement Layer, whatever you want to call it. BCH, and some others as well, are marching on with the original ethos of Bitcoin.

"We could sit and talk about Bitcoin all night long
And wonder why it didn't last
Yes, pre-8/1/17 might be the best CryptoDays we will ever know
But we'll have to leave them in the past.

I try not to think about what might have been
Cause that was then and they have slightly diff'rent codes
We can't go back again Blockstream aint giving in
And there's no way to know
What might have been"
-BlocKade

(Full disclosure: These shore-side pictures may or may not have been taken prior to my whiskey-fueled sunset HardFork Thoughts)