Long-Term Threats To Bitcoin Cash

Bitcoin Cash is a top cryptocurrency in various metrics like on-chain transactions, speed and cost of transactions, network security.

The upgrade to Bitcoin following the vision of the whitepaper for a successful P2P Electronic Cash network.

The Bitcoin Cash network executes fast and cheap transactions aiming to compete in commerce with the traditional payment networks of Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, etc. It is the best alternative to these payment networks possessing all the features of paper-cash, with one exception: Scarcity.

There is a limit of 21 million BCH that will ever exist. Currently, 19 million BCH on the blockchain have been mined, while two more million BCH will be produced by mining in the following decades.

It is following the logical progression of technology and remains equally decentralized to the BTC chain in the mining sector, while also achieving complete decentralization in its development without a single party in control of the decision-making process.

Yet, as with every cutting-edge technological innovation, threats always emerge, mostly from competing sides, and not always concerning the technological aspect.

Anti-BCH Publications, Social Media Accounts, and Propaganda

Anti-BCH publications such as this one: CORE Report: Bitcoin Cash (Abridged), paid to produce negative sentiment while containing blatant lies as :

• "Bitcoin Cash has negligible adoption and chain activity, despite forking away from Bitcoin to become cheaper to use"

When this anti-BCH article was written, the network activity was higher than BTC's.

• "The Bitcoin Cash network is orders of magnitude less secure and more centralized than the Bitcoin network."

BCH is the second blockchain in hashrate, was always secure, and has never been successfully attacked. With the approach of the article in question, no other network besides BTC is secure; a classic BTC maximalist deception.

The same miners that produce hashrate for the BTC blockchain also perform the mining for BCH, so the “more centralized” argument is invalid. BCH was always a decentralized network.

These are just two examples, and we already know the inconsistency and blatant lies often the BTC maximalists will succumb to, is not targeting those that did their research, but the millions of newcomers that is easier to manipulate.

Another threat to BCH is the crypto media outlets, some news magazines that are not considered credible sources but still reach high traffic on their websites.

Media like Coindesk, Cointelegraph, Decrypt, are obscuring positive Bitcoin Cash news, not mentioning BCH in the titles, or not even publishing reports on positive developments and adoption.

Most of these websites are directing their audience to BTC and will also often publish paid written content without even announcing it.

These networks often play the game of the BTC whales/traders, issuing bullish or bearish warnings depending on the preferences (long or short) of the whales that support them.

The censorship of positive news for Bitcoin Cash is countered by the actual developments, adoption, and increase in the userbase of BCH. It doesn't take too long for a newcomer to realize these crypto media contain no single trace of credibility.

Price Manipulation In Centralized Exchanges

The price depends on supply and demand. However, if "artificial" supply is added, then it will affect the price. In case an exchange is not offering real BCH but digits on the screen then this is a malicious and unlawful market manipulation technique to negatively affect the price.

In case some exchanges print BCH, the price will definitely drop. 

Those that participate in such unlawful manipulation should consider they are basically sabotaging the price of an asset. And BCH is a six billion dollar asset they manipulate.

Using Willy bots to pump the price of an asset creates artificial price support, but adding digits of fake BCH in exchange accounts and not allowing withdrawals when you run out of real BCH, then you just conduct illegitimate operations aiming to make investors lose money.

You damage without acquiring profit from this. 

Lack of transparency with unregulated CEXs hinders progress in the cryptocurrency ecosystem. It also creates this kind of doubts and suspicions.

Naked Shorting is despiteful, and everyone really hopes the rumors circulating are not real, as these events damage investors, and maybe some will move against these exchanges with a different approach if these rumors are verified.

Nobody likes losing money, especially from malicious actors, as then this might get personal, for some. Especially when some have the power and the means to take action.

Exchanges that simply don't have the BCH volumes at their disposal but play a dirty game and allow BCH price manipulation, should reconsider this approach ASAP.

Tether's Connections With Blockstream And BTC Maximalist Traders

Today Tether holds a market cap of approximately $80 Billion.

Back in 2017-2018, the market tetherization was insignificant, with USDT's market cap between 1-2 Billion USD. Still, Tether was accused of market manipulation since 2017 and the pattern of minting USDT coincides with the bullish BTC "cycles".

Bitcoin Cash performed much better in an un-Tethered market when USDT's influence was limited in cryptocurrency exchanges.

Tether sustains even Tron, but not BCH, and judging by Tether/Bitfinex ties with Blockstream it raises suspicions that perhaps USDT is used to manipulate the price of various assets.

As Samson Mow (former CSO of Blockstream) explains:

This response by Samson Mow perfectly explains why BTC traders only short BCH. Samson Mow doesn't care about BSV, since it only acts as an ally to Blockstream instead of a competitor it claims to be. The real target and what Samson Mow talks about is Bitcoin Cash.

He clearly explains how the price of BCH is artificially suppressed by trading algorithms and perhaps even naked shorting at the Bitfinex exchange.

Can we trust this exchange (Bitfinex) when behind it is basically the same team with Tether that it doesn't simply print digits in its exchange and destroy the price of cryptocurrencies Blockstream hates?

Mainly, these two exchanges are the most suspicious for price manipulation:

• Binance

• Bitfinex

Does anyone really trust Bitfinex except the BTC maximalists (fiat evangelist traders) like "whalepool" that work together and lie together with Bitfinex for about a decade?

Tether is constantly used to support only BTC in exchanges. It has supported occasionally other cryptocurrencies pumping their volumes and price. However, not constantly, and not Bitcoin Cash either.

BCH finds no support, as crypto exchanges are algorithmically pegged to support BTC. This is how the bots trade and BTC whales short BCH even if this creates losses.

Without Tether, BTC's chart would have been far worse and even BTC traders (like Tone Vays) were claiming BTC was going back to $1000 until Tether (together with the Plus Token Ponzi) helped BTC recover from its $3,000 low of 2018.

Maybe Tether/Bitfinex should reconsider the negative stance towards Bitcoin Cash, and become useful instead.

With smartBCH there is room for USDT.

FlexUSD as a competitor stablecoin is close to Bitcoin Cash, but it is not as powerful outside of CoinFLEX yet. Perhaps FlexUSD offers better rates than Tether when minting and lending and competes with it in the long run.

Is Tether looking for more competitors or would prefer to enter partnerships in a promising market like the one smartBCH presents?

On Medium, I often receive messages by supposed Tether "fans". I don't think anyone writes in favor of Tether unless this is someone paid to do that, or perhaps this is someone from the Tether team.

I can't investigate the suspicions/rumors I mentioned since Bitfinex, Binance, Kraken, and any other CEX won't release any data if anyone requests it.

I explained already this is all rumors. Realistically speaking, though, most of these assumptions are based on solid facts.

Perhaps these exchanges won't even release this kind of information to a government agency either, since it contains illegal practices and will only be discovered if one of these exchanges meets the fate of MtGox.

So, all the above I mentioned are suspicions and speculation, with high chances of being real, though.

Nonetheless, I find no reason to support USDT since it doesn't apply in the Bitcoin Cash and smartBCH ecosystem.

Also, the ties with Blockstream and BTC maximalists constitute Tether a direct threat to Bitcoin Cash.

Moreover, when combined with the recent Binance event (stopping BCH withdrawals without any valid reason), it certainly seems that all suspicions of exchange manipulation are reasonable.

I don't accuse the Tether/Bitfinex team of anything. I even admire most of them for having managed an $80 Billion market cap of USDT while maintaining the peg to the dollar. No matter how Tether managed this, it is remarkable and tells us more about the potential of the digital economy and finance in the coming decades.

However, the deduction is that USDT never helped or supported the price of Bitcoin Cash, but instead constitutes a threat with the practices of some centralized exchanges and the BTC maximalist (traders) operating in these exchanges.

It is simply unreasonable for Bitcoin Cash to drop so much without manipulation.

The Tether team does not look like BTC maximalists either. Maybe it should focus on achieving partnerships and proceed with more support to those cryptocurrencies that work towards adoption and bring more people into this ecosystem, people that will eventually use USDT as well.

Maybe Tether should look at the number of users' noise.cash attracts, the numbers of BCH transactions, and how the Bitcoin Cash adoption is not just about BCH but also performs a service to the whole cryptocurrency industry. And that also includes Tether and Bitfinex.

In Conclusion

Bitcoin Cash is constantly threatened by media censorship and anti-BCH sentiment, expressed mostly in BTC-maximalist cryptocurrency news. Also, a vast campaign of paid anti-BCH accounts in social media and Reddit operating a misinformation campaign is difficult to counter.

These are not characteristics of Bitcoin Cash, to be called weaknesses, but direct threats that block Bitcoin Cash from further recognition in and out of the crypto space.

The rise of the smart contract networks was also a threat to Bitcoin Cash on a different scale. The release of smartBCH turned this threat into an opportunity, and Bitcoin Cash is now exploring its potential.

Another threat I didn't mention is CBDCs. Not just a threat to BCH, but the whole cryptocurrency industry as well, since crypto will have to directly compete with a government-issued digital currency backed by overwhelming resources. Governments will probably try to eliminate or reduce competition from cryptocurrencies, and perhaps more blanket bans similar to the Chinese one could apply.

That would be against innovating technologies, though, and perhaps those countries that apply such legislation will be left behind in the technological race for decades.

Cover Photo by Chetraruc, on Pixabay

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