Saturday, August 15th, 2020
Bitcoin Cash is a system built on incentives.
BCH doesn't care about your ideology, it doesn't care about who thanked who, or whatever you might have thought the project originally stood for.
What BCH cares about is surviving, and growing, like a virus.
Bitcoin Cash doesn't have a soul, it has lines of code. But don't make the mistake of thinking BCH isn't a technology that lives and breathes in its own way, and is constantly evolving.
Of everything that's happened to Bitcoin since its inception, I believe what is about to happen on the Bitcoin Cash chain this November has the potential to be seen as the biggest event since the first transaction sent by Satoshi to Hal Finney in block 170.
Mike Hearn famously wrote that the Bitcoin experiment had failed. But I believe he was wrong, and that the existence of BCH proves it. Despite everything this chain has endured, it is still standing. Blocks are still being mined, transactions are still being processed, and people are still building on what appears to be the only branch of Bitcoin that is continuing to evolve.
I know many of you believe that if the IFP is backed by the majority of miners, you will feel much like Mike did, that the experiment has failed. But why?
None of us can possibly know how things are going to play out in November. There are too many moving parts, too many unknown variables, but I for one believe the miners will choose the IFP because it is the next logical step to continue BCH's evolution.
As someone who didn't get into Bitcoin until 2017, I can only imagine how disappointing it must have been when the Core developers prevented BTC from evolving by refusing to increase the block size. To not be able to make such a simple fix that would have kept the chain working as intended must have been disheartening to say the least. So I understand the concern of putting too much power into the hands of a small group of individuals, but I don't share those concerns.
To me, the fact that Bitcoin Cash has survived this long is a miracle. As the minority chain, and arguably the most despised in the industry, it's incredible so many of us are still here. And I believe we are still here because in spite of all the infighting, and the drama, Bitcoin Cash still embodies the grand vision we all share for p2p electronic cash.
From my perspective, I don't see how activation of the IFP changes that. If anything, it serves as a signal that important players are tired of moving in place, that they finally feel a sense of urgency and are ready to take that next step and move forward.
I know many people see the IFP as a tax. They believe it creates a central point of failure, that it gives too much power to one person, and that it adds perverse incentives.
But there are always two sides to a story. Whereas you see the IFP as a tax, I see it as an opportunity for miners to voluntarily fund the team they believe to be essential for their future. While you choose to see Bitcoin ABC as a central point of failure, I see this as an opportunity for ABC to become a focal point that gives rise to a new era of prosperity.
For the first time in the history of BCH, we have an opportunity to properly fund our most accomplished builders, and a mechanism to do it in such a way that it will almost entirely be paid for by rival BTC miners.
You argue the IFP will introduce perverse incentives, this imaginary scenario where donating 8% of the block reward (~$4M over 6 months at today's prices) will encourage Bitcoin ABC to simply rest on their laurels and not get any work done. I disagree vehemently. In fact I believe the total opposite is true and that the IFP will further incentivize them to work harder because adding value to the chain will result in their funding to go up. They will also no longer be forced to work with one arm tied around their back, they will be able to offer a stable environment that allows them to plan ahead rather having to expend their energy only putting out fires or on needless tasks like getting more funding.
I believe that the presence of the IFP can also help us get rid of very real perverse incentives that already exist in the BCH ecosystem today. Like the incentive to free ride. Ask yourself, of all those miners who recently signed the joint statement in opposition of the IFP, have they ever donated anything to ABC or did they just use it for free while other miners paid for it?
I believe the IFP can help us remove the incentive for hobbyists and part-time BCH developers to keep the status quo so that they can maintain their positions of leadership. Imagine if ABC could hire more world-class cryptographers and computer scientists to help them build Bitcoin Cash into what they envision? Is that in the best interest of all those developers who also signed a joint statement in opposition of the IFP?
And finally, I believe the IFP can help us get rid of the incentive for people to spend so much time virtue signaling on social media in order to get donations from certain parties.
Some have said that if BCH had announced a consensus level infrastructure fund from the very beginning, they would have never joined. As if implementing the IFP is breaking some kind of social contract, but I refute that argument as well. I would never want to put Bitcoin Cash into a box. We need to let it evolve and go wherever it needs to go in order to become censorship resistant p2p digital cash. In my mind, giving ABC power isn't just like what happened with Core, but preventing BCH from evolving would be.
I've noticed everyone who is opposed to the IFP only focuses on the negative. They appear to be unable to see a version of the future where the IFP acts as intended and ushers in a new era of rapid building for BCH.
Yes, it's always possible that Amaury can wake up one day and decide to run off with a couple million dollars and forever tarnish his legacy, but I have a strong feeling he values his integrity much more than that. So while you worry about what can go wrong, I choose to imagine what can go right, and how with the support of the miners, ABC can finally deliver on the roadmap they've been promising from the start.
I think all of us who have become involved in BCH want the same things. We just have different ideas on how best to get there. I also think we all believe in the idea of economic freedom, and to me, the IFP is an initiative that falls under that umbrella.
According to The Heritage Foundation, "Economic freedom is the fundamental right of every human to control his or her own labor and property. In an economically free society, individuals are free to work, produce, consume, and invest in any way they please."
Based on the above, you cannot deny ABC their right to change their code in any way they desire. The miners are free to run whatever node they prefer. And investors and users are free to invest and use whatever currency they want. It is only through such voluntary actions that we have a free market, and I would argue that anyone who wishes to deter such actions is acting in a way that limits our economic freedom.
People have been saying for a long time that ABC should run their operation like a profit seeking business. Well, guess what, they've just figured out how to do exactly that. For the past three years, they've worked tirelessly to build their reputation with the miners, and proved they could be relied upon to run a multi-billion dollar network. They've delivered solutions, beginning from the day they created BCH on August 1st, 2017, and achieved what so many other teams failed to do previously. Now it's time for them to capitalize on that work.
Some are afraid the price of BCH will fall if ABC gets majority hash this November. But I don't think that's true.
For the past couple of years, I believe what has held BCH back more than anything is the lack of funding for its most important team, Bitcoin ABC. It's been the dominant story line ever since late 2018, this constant concern that ABC is on the verge of running out of money. But imagine what the market will do once that concern has been removed? I can't help but think the market recognizes the importance of a strong and reliable leadership team, and by removing the danger of losing the leadership of ABC, the market should react positively.
It's one thing to have rest.bitcoin.com always on the fritz, or work on the badger wallet be discontinued, but if the team behind the lead implementation were to disappear tomorrow, I don't know if that's something Bitcoin Cash can recover from.
Maybe you don't agree, but for me Bitcoin ABC is what's keeping BCH alive. They are the ones who have been maintaining the valuable relationships with the miners and exchanges to ensure BCH provides a high quality user experience. Blocks are created, transactions are processed, and businesses build on top of BCH because they can depend on it to run as intended, and that's mostly thanks to the work of Bitcoin ABC.
If you couldn't tell, I am genuinely excited by this new direction that BCH is embarking upon. It's as if the previous three years have been nothing more than a prelude to what's about to happen this November. All the history, and the characters, and the various dramas between them, have been leading to this moment.
For the first time, miners will be forced to put their money on the line and make a decision. The stakes will be as high as they have ever been, and November 15th is the day they finally choose the direction of this project. Will BCH be a be a system based on incentives and capitalistic ideas? Or will it be a socialistic system requiring the survival of the project be based on the goodwill of the community?
As always, thank you for reading.
WOW, well said. You refuted a lot of the troll army's false arguments that the anti-IFP movement uses to fool the community into joining their attack on BCH funding. Funding, that's the thing that scared the anti-BCH forces into going all-in on stopping the IFP. Funding BCH development is the most scary thing to the troll masters. Many in our community have fallen for their dishonest and false-logic arguments and now fight side-by-side with the anti-BCH troll army. Somehow, they can't see that or keep themselves from reveling in their dishonest hate-based attacks on BCH's most trustworthy team. It is so satisfying to hate Amaury it is easy to believe he has bad intent towards BCH without any evidence of that being the case.