Today, Bitcoin Cash underwent its regularly scheduled semi-annual protocol upgrade. What was different about today's upgrade is that the ecosystem followed the protocol rules set forth by Bitcoin Cash Node (BCHN) and other collaborating node implementations, and did NOT follow the incumbent leadership team (Bitcoin ABC), who has decided to implement a different ruleset and has forked off to Bitcoin ABC chain.
I won't go into great depth about why the split happened, but here's the quick recap: Bitcoin ABC deliberately chose to implement something very controversial without discussion with the community (the so-called infrastructure funding plan or "IFP"), and as a result, quite willfully chose to be on their chain.
The incumbent team (ABC) not only had prior dominance among miners and exchanges, but they also control the primary Bitcoin Cash website. Thus, the victory of the community over the unilateral decision making of ABC is not to be taken lightly. It was hard-won, and historic in that it is one of very few examples where an entrenched development team was ousted.
This is possible due to the decentralized nature of cryptocurrency. Its a huge victory not just for Bitcoin Cash, but for crypto in general, as it proves the principle of decentralization in practice.
In terms of Bitcoin Cash in particular, I see a bright future again. The point here isn't to bash ABC, and indeed I wish them the best of success. But in the opinions of many, ABC had been a problem for Bitcoin Cash for some time.
With BCHN and others now leading protocol development, I am expecting a better culture which will attract more developers, investors, and business. I am also looking forward to more concrete results in terms of scaling and protocol development.
To the moon!
I made a couple nice comments and they were hidden within minutes as "spam".