Dear Bitcoin Unlimited (BU)

Recently, I saw the above tweet from BU's chief scientist, Peter Rizun, and I admit it triggered me. Sadly, this wasn't even the first time. The first time was after hearing his remarks during an interview on Peter McCormack's podcast where he stated:

“Yeah, I think most BCH enthusiasts still hold lots of BTC. Because, you know, maybe BTC gets their act together, realizes that we have to increase the blocksize limit, and I think that would really reunite the community and we can all move forward together. So yeah I hold both to prepare for that risk.”

My problem with both the tweet and the quote is that no matter how you look at it, it appears as if what Peter wants is for BTC to raise its blocksize to "reunite the community and we can all move forward together."

As someone who fell down the bitcoin rabbit hole only after the existence of Bitcoin Cash, and as such only owns BCH, I have a serious issue with his statements. I bought into the BCH movement hook, line and sinker because of everything this community stands for, and I'm sure I'm not alone. If one of the community's so called leaders is now going to tell me, more than two years after the fork, that the preferred path is to have BTC increase its blocksize to "reunite the community", I can't help but call bullshit. Think of all the businesses that were onboarded in Townsville, Australia, or in Tokyo, Japan, over the last two years. All the hard work of people like Akane Yokoo or Hayden Otto. Are you telling them their efforts have been nothing but a waste of time? Think of everyone Roger has onboarded since the end of 2017? Was that all just a big con to try and influence BTC to finally raise its blocksize? Is that what we want from BCH thought leaders? Just today, I read this post by read.cash's very own sjbuendia who has fallen in love with BCH so much that he printed 547 informational pamphlets about BCH and passed them out in his community. Is Peter telling him he should just give up and wait for BTC to raise its block size?

It's no secret that BU holds 95% of their capital in BTC, 3% in BCH, and 2% in BSV. It's no secret that BU has several members who are clearly pro BSV and will always vote in a manner that is detrimental to BCH. That combined with Peter's statements can't help but leave a bad taste in my mouth. If BU is serious about helping the BCH ecosystem, I think they need to do something about members that are anti-BCH. And they need to do something about not having any real skin in the game.

With all that said, the point of this article isn't to accuse BU of being another nChain trying to purposefully divide the BCH community. I remain hopeful that BU isn't malicious, but what I do think is that some of their behavior is detrimental to BCH.

Take for example, their proposed solution to the 25 transaction chained mempool limit. It is clear to the community that their proposed solution would hurt 0-confirmation security, but they continue to move forward regardless of the feedback. On top of everything, the 1000 BCH bounty put up by SatoshiDice was to remove the limit altogether. Their proposal only increases the limit from 25 to 500, and yet they write in their blog: "SatoshiDice should consider awarding the 1000 BCH bounty to BU and the developers who made this happen once the software is released in production and the first long chain of mempool transactions is mined on mainnet."

Look, I don't want to sit here picking on all of BU's faults or past mistakes. This isn't meant to be a personal attack, though I'm sure it might seem like it to some. The real purpose of this post is with the hope that BU can see how their actions appear to many of us who consider ourselves part of this wonderful community.

On a personal note, back in 2018, after the Satoshi's Vision conference in Tokyo, Collin Enstad asked in the BCF discord if people would volunteer to transcribe some of the interviews they did to be later used in a documentary they hoped to produce. Having fallen in love with BCH and what it stands for, I went ahead and transcribed four or five of them for him in my free time. Among those interviews was the one of Peter Rizun. At the time I held Peter and everyone else I transcribed in high regard. These were OG bitcoiners. They knew so much more than I did. I kept investing both my time and money into BCH, told friends about it, and even tried my hand at getting merchants in my area to accept it. So to now hear Peter talk about "reuniting" with the BTC community without any regard for those of us who joined the BCH community after the fork is disappointing to say the least.

The fact is, BU is the most well funded development team in all of BCH. As of their last financial statement from June 2017, they held over 655 BTC. That is worth over $5M USD today.

I think it's great that they recently funded the BCH specification being written by Joshua Green and his team at Software Verde. And earlier tonight, I saw this tweet by the Bitcoin Unlimited account asking the BCH community how they could contribute to the BCH ecosystem:

I am hoping this is a positive sign that BU is finally ready to let BTC go and devote themselves to fully supporting the Bitcoin Cash movement. I think it's time to start using that capital to fund more BCH projects, conferences, and hackathons. I think it's time to start putting BCH first ahead of BU. But mostly, I think it's time for BU to let Bitcoin (BTC) go and devote yourselves fully to Bitcoin Cash (BCH). If not, it might just be time for the BCH community to move on from BU or risk letting another organization divide our community even further.

Thanks for reading.