Bitcoin Cash Resumes The Competition

I never thought of Bitcoin having the sole purpose of reaching a status of an accepted store of value as an asset without also presenting features of a means of exchange.

Since when I joined the Bitcoin revolution in mid-2017, I realized the inaccuracy of most descriptions of Bitcoin. The narratives were conflicting, and most were in Bitcoin just for the speculative side (for the money), while just a remote part of the Bitcoin proponents was concerned with fundamentals.

It was all about trading Bitcoin, and trading did help, as it created artificial transactions on the blockchain and supported the narrative of a vast network effect. A network effect still based on exchange transactions, though, and not actual usage as digital cash.

There are different economic views on what constitutes a store of value and how it can evolve into means of exchange. There is a big difference between how BTC evolved with the Lightning Network (after seven years of pausing adoption) and how adoption was rapidly growing until 2014.

We are all aware that LN is a layer-2, running on top of the BTC blockchain. The base layer, the blockchain, is crippled and beyond repair since decisions are dictated by a small group of developers, Bitcoin Core, which in turn is acting on behalf of a for-profit private company, Blockstream.

If You Can't Beat Them Buy Them Out

What occurred was a hostile (corporate) takeover of the Bitcoin brand, by controlling developments, excluding previous developers from the code, forcing them to resign, or even removing their Github privileges.

Blockstream hijacked the Bitcoin brand.

Any advancements in the field of merchant adoption backtracked for several years, as the lightning network became the only solution proposed to address the scalability issues.

Bitcoin (BTC) was hijacked by a group of developers serving personal interests and its explosive growth in the payments field diminished.

Every merchant or business has explored BTC as a payment option in the last seven years but rejected it since it is not a reliable currency.

Fees of BTC can rise astronomically, and the network congestion can delay a transaction in the mempool while waiting for a miner to pick it up after days.

Bitcoin as a payments network was fought vigorously by the banks, until 2014-2015 in mainstream media. This was when Blockstream took control of the brand and maintained the blocksize limit of 1MB. Meanwhile, the narrative suddenly changed, and the "Accepting Bitcoin" and "Be Your Own Bank" messages of adoption changed into a narrative of digital gold and a store of value.

The target group was not every single person anymore but just a wealthy elite that could afford high volumes and increased risk.

With this approach, and a vast network of advertisers, fund advisors, and marketing agents on social media, BTC become a Wall Street asset.

And this is where it is today, having absolutely no purpose and no realistic features of either being a store of value or a means of exchange.

What is the purpose or the future of this "asset"? 

Upon conversations with BTC maximalists (even in the bitcointalk forum), anyone can realize that in the end, it is all about speculation.

There is nothing else in BTC today but buying and selling it to profit in dollar terms.

BTC is not used in payments, and the facade of El Salvador was yet another marketing stunt to attract attention and keep the narrative ongoing and transforming.

Is any Bitcoiner happy that El Salvador forces the use of regulated and supervised custodial wallets (using Tether and Algorand rails as well)?

Bitcoin (BTC), with this approach, only serves the mainstream payment networks (Mastercard, Visa, Paypal, and SWIFT).

It is not challenging or competing with the established banking-related networks but reinforces them instead.

Lightning Network itself is flawed by design, indicating centralization tendencies with the inevitable dominance of centralized financial hubs. The hubs within the Lightning Network indicate centralized LN payment processors will be dominant. These hubs are regulated financial institutions (private entities), forcing KYC, and other State payment guidelines while controlling both funds and the flows.

Implying:

(9gag)

LN is not a payments revolution and certainly not a competitor to the established financial and payment networks that dominate finance and the money sector for centuries.

Instead, LN fits the banks, since it doesn't mess with their business. 

LN is also giving them the option to become dominant hubs as well.

With LN, Bitcoin from excluding third parties, it becomes a third party within the transactional payment networks controlled by the banks, Central banks, and payment processors.

Why would banks like AXA fund Blockstream anyway if it was going to cost them and compete against their dominant model of POS, e-commerce and digital banking?

Debate this if you still mention conspiracy theories on this subject:

YOU DON'T FUND YOUR COMPETITORS - YOU BUY THEM OUT INSTEAD.

There is no conspiracy as some are in favor of suggesting what Bitcoin Cash advocates are often explaining.

It is called "BUSINESS". 

This is how the business and banking world operates. You probably haven't lived it, and from a philosophical point of view, you may think of the world differently.

I have both studied it and experienced it though, for many years.

It is way worse than you imagine it, or than how I am describing it.

In Conclusion: The Real Bitcoin is Bitcoin Cash

Bitcoin Cash resumes the competition.

Bitcoin Cash was embraced by most of the honest Bitcoin users that wanted to see Bitcoin succeed with its original purpose as P2P Electronic Cash and compete in commerce as a better form of digital money.

The Bitcoin Cash community did not want to see Bitcoin distorted and losing its initial purpose.

The blocksize debate is not important to the millions or the hundred million new cryptocurrency investors. What matters is this:

Bitcoin Cash is the upgrade to Bitcoin. 

Bitcoin Cash scales and can reach global adoption as a currency independent from Central Banks' manipulation and control.

The other version of Bitcoin that kept the brand name and logo, does not scale and has no intention to become a widely accepted method of exchange.

However, everyone is free to believe that an asset can just have "store of value" characteristics and resemble gold without any other use case.

Cover Photo: by "Danny Muller" on Unsplash

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Not financial advice.

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