My Ruling on the ABC/Bitcoin.com Feud (My First Read.Cash Article!)

So the latest drama in the Bitcoin Cash community is a point of disagreement, leading to tension, finger pointing, and potentially unhelpful "us versus them" clique forming. I wasn't even aware the issue was as serious as it appears to be, because, having followed BCH events from the start it's as obvious as anything to me the principals, Roger Ver (owner/founder of Bitcoin.com) and Amaury Séchet (lead dev of BitcoinABC) seem to see things the exact same way. Indeed, the issue appears to stem ironically from Roger Ver's support for Amaury and BitcoinABC.

Unfortunately, it's been said attempting to get libertarian minded folks to work together can be like trying to herd cats. For those unaware of the problem I'll recap events as I understand them. Apparently Roger Ver made a comment to the effect that Amaury or at least BitcoinABC received over $500,000 from him via Bitcoin.com support. I'm paraphrasing because I don't know the exact quote, only hearing it second hand. However, this in itself is important because as my ruling will show semantics can mean the difference between a person appearing to be telling outright falsehoods, or being the most transparently honest person possible, but having their intent misconstrued so as to appear purposefully devious.

Either way this was met with public objection from Amaury, who contended he did not in fact receive such monetary sums. The reason his objection was important to him was twofold. First, his software project (BitcoinABC) relies pretty much entirely on voluntary donations and support. If it's believed some numeric figure has been obtained, when in fact it hasn't this can hamper the already difficult task of effective fundraising. Second, and in some ways more important in terms of impact to the project viability, is concern about a perception his leadership and/or abilities are sub par when, having received some numeric figure, he continues insisting funds are holding up progress on the latest technical issue moving to the forefront of BCH development: the unconfirmed 25 chained transaction limit. BitcoinUnlimited has made progress on that technical challenge. BitcoinABC maintains the issue cannot be properly addressed at present, for a number of reasons, where at least one reason appears to be adequate funding. In this context, I can understand Amaury's objection. My ruling given analysis of the accounting summary recently made available by Roger is Amaury is correct. BitcoinABC did not receive $500,000; probably not from anybody, let alone Bitcoin.com/Roger Ver.

Does this mean Roger Ver was lying, or at least mistaken? Not necessarily. Again, it's important to consider semantics. In the first place I don't believe Roger initially said something so explicit as "we gave BitcoinABC X dollars here and here." That's the only way anyone could say he was lying or mistaken, because there is no way to misconstrue intended meaning. Facts are facts and the accounting would show, specifically, where funds were or were not delivered. Instead I believe he said something to the effect of "BitcoinABC got at least X dollars from us." Are the two statements equivalent? They are not, because in the second case the intended meaning can be much more general, which is what I believe happened.

I think Roger's intent was more about X amount of dollar value, not physical dollars transferred to one's bank account. Let's review how this might be the case. The specific amount in question is $500,000. The accounting summary provided shows about $200,000 in physical dollars, in my estimation, directly going to BitcoinABC. When I say directly going to BitcoinABC I mean a nearly equivalent to physical dollars going to their bank account. We start with the fundraiser dollars which we can round off at $150,000. These were funds directly delivered to Amaury. However, they were mixed with both funds sourced from Roger Ver and funds sourced from the rest of the community. Roger Ver didn't specify how much of those funds were his, but given historical precedent showing meager developer fundraising I think it's safe to say anywhere near 50% of the funds came from him, which would be $75,000. To be safe, let's knock this down to $50,000. Note this doesn't include the value of having Bitcoin.com/Roger Ver, a trusted, popular entity, leading and hosting the fundraiser. If Amaury/BitcoinABC had simply posted a BCH address on a website would the same number of funds have poured in? I think that's doubtful.

So we start with $50,000. Next comes the legal protection from the anti-trust lawsuit, which was again about $150,000. I say this counts as physical dollars in a bank account because the lawsuit was very real. If Roger Ver hadn't voluntarily stepped up to legally shield the independent developers their own personal finances and living situation would have been exposed, and they would have had to cover expenses on their own. It doesn't get more direct than that.

So we're at about $200,000 in physical dollars we can definitely account for. We're left $300,000 short, but we can use this as a floor. Again, remember, Roger Ver's initial argument was never explicitly said to be physical dollars. That means we must also account for the possibility of value delivered. Roger then argues BitcoinABC "got" $1,000,000 for the hash war resulting in the BCH/BSV split. Here is where things get murkier. At the time, it seemed the highest priority for a future BCH community under the effective leadership of Amaury/BitcoinABC, was winning and defending from the formidable adversary we saw with nChain and billionaire Calvin Ayre's CoinGeek. It appeared a sizable portion of the newly formed BCH community wanted BitcoinABC's side to win. Highly notable figures, like Bitcoin.com, Jonald Fyookball (Electron Cash) and others certainly sided with BitcoinABC, and even ones that didn't explicitly side with BitcoinABC, like BitcoinUnlimited, preferred to remain on that side given the hard choice. So the need to protect BitcoinABC's claim to authority was real, with benefits touching many interested parties. If BitcoinABC had a spare $50,000,000 lying in the bank would they have contributed something toward winning the hash war? I'd say probably. How much is not known, but that's a meaningless point because they didn't have such funds available. Fortunately, they didn't need to because Roger Ver stepped up to provide them. This is where we have the challenging task of assessing how much value BitcoinABC got from that philanthropy. It's certainly over $0. Who knows what future financial advantages BitconiABC gains having such an important role in the BCH community. I wouldn't say it's the full million dollars, though, because so many different parties benefited, including Bitcoin.com. Can we say just $300,000 then? If we do, that alone would meet our threshold for the $500,000 in the value claim we're seeking to find. See how Roger's side of things looks less like being outright mistaken in this context? We can almost arrive there without even going in to things like the steady 0.5% of mining fees Bitcoin.com apparently contributes to BitcoinABC regularly, or more intangibles like cooperation with valuable resources from Bitcoin.com on any number of issues. A claim of "they've gotten at least $500,000 in value from us" I'd therefore rule as having evident credibility, especially when said casually as a guesstimate. Even if this wasn't what was said it may have been what was meant.

So we can see how both parties are right without either being necessarily wrong. It depends on the perspective from which one looks at things.

In closing I want to propose some advice to Amaury/BitcoinABC, which is to prioritize working on the 25 chained tx limit, even if it's the only feature changed in the May 2020 hard-fork. Don't do it because "you were paid $500,000 to do what we say" which is the way I think you feel the case is being presented to you. Of course you clearly were not directly paid any such amount. I also understand the hazard of appearing "subservient to someone's payroll" given the trusted community leadership role you've taken on. Instead I think you should do it because there appears to be a desire to get the feature done from different parts of the community, not limited to Bitcoin.com, and it would show good faith. As a side note, my ruling is in favor of Roger Ver for his comments, which were apparently a source of outrage, that BitcoinABC is dragging its feet. I don't say this because I think BitcoinABC is dragging its feet. I think BitcoinABC has done a phenomenal job with limited resources. My ruling is in favor of Roger here because he's free to give an opinion on events just like anyone else in the community, regardless to whether he's ever donated penny.

The child-pays-for-parent code seems to be one of the main hold ups to progress on this issue. I say get rid of it. We can safely do so because our community embraces hard-forks. If at some later point, say near the end of completing our roadmap, we determine CPFP to be needed we can deal with it from a better vantage point, having lots more valuable time and knowledge of surrounding facts under our belt.