I read micropresident's recent post The Cryptocurrency of Theseus and wanted to share my thoughts on some things I take issue with.
His post is pretty long, but the TLDR is that Bitcoin Cash is Amaury's project and if we disagree we can take a hike.
(While writing this small response, @mtrycz had already published one, which I am in complete agreement with.)
Bitcoin Cash is a protocol not a single piece of software
The main problem with the argument is that micropresident asserts that Bitcoin ABC is Amaury's project, which is hard to disagree with, but extends it to mean that Bitcoin Cash is Amaury's project. Essentially he's making the error that Bitcoin ABC is Bitcoin Cash.
But this isn't true.
Just think about it. What would happen if suddenly all users, exchanges and miners stopped using ABC? Would Bitcoin Cash stop being Bitcoin Cash, and a new cryptocurrency be created?
Of course not. It would continue functioning exactly the same. But if ABC really defined BCH, this wouldn't be true.
Who defines Bitcoin Cash then?
Micropresident himself touches on the answer:
So that is to say, Bitcoin Cash is the thing which the users agree is Bitcoin Cash and can be used as currency.
Nothing more, and nothing less.
It's tempting to try to drill deeper into the definition and to figure out exactly what users would agree to be Bitcoin Cash.
Micropresident says that thinks that Bitcoin Cash is defined by whatever data ABC produces. But that has absolutely no relevance if others don't follow the same definition. What if they would define Bitcoin Cash by whatever data Bitcoin Unlimited would produce? They've been following the same consensus rules, so what happens if they would differ in the future?
Instead we could try to find something that *most* users could agree with. For example:
Bitcoin Cash is whatever chain most exchanges assign the BCH ticker to
I don't really like this definition either, but I'll bet that it's more correct because more users would agree with this definition over micropresident's. I'll even wager that most people who buy Bitcoin Cash don't even know what Bitcoin ABC is!
There are many other definitions you might use, such as defining Bitcoin Cash as the longest chain starting from the split from Bitcoin or as whatever Faketoshi says it is.
We might even face a situation where two significant groups disagree about "the right chain", which of course was a big part of the Bitcoin/Bitcoin Cash split.
To the agitation of engineers everywhere I think it's impossible to find an objectively true and detailed definition of what defines Bitcoin Cash, because everything is subjective.
(If you'd like to learn more about economics look up the Subjective theory of value which is related to this concept.)
Monero fired their benevolent dictator
Micropresident argues that we cannot kick Amaury, as in we cannot because it's impossible.
Yet Monero did exactly this when people disagreed with the direction of the project, and a new team took control of the project while firing the old team. See this stackexchange answer for some history.
Impossible? No, it's just difficult to get the community on board.
Unthoughtful and ignorant, stupid or malicious
Although the article is heavily arguing that ABC == BCH (as all ABC supporters seem to do), I do appreciate micropresident writing the article. But I do not appreciate this remark:
The people who continue to battle over who gets to be “in charge” can reasonably be assumed to be: unthoughtful and ignorant, stupid, or malicious. I will be referring to this letter in all future discussions that draw into question Amaury’s right to lead his own project. Those of us who want to move forward cannot endlessly spend time debating people who are willfully ignorant, stupid, or malicious.
Here he's essentially calling anyone who disagrees with him "unthoughtful and ignorant, stupid, or malicious". This is the same type of argumentation that BTC maximalists, flat earthers and anti-vaxxers use to dismiss anything that goes against their opinions and it should have no place in our mission for p2p digital cash.
It's something only someone who's unthoughtful, ignorant, stupid or malicious could write.
👏👏