1 Year After Switching to Bitcoin Cash

Hey everyone!

1 year ago this month, I made the switch from BTC to Bitcoin Cash. Prior to this, I had been developing BTC apps and services for some time. I grew tired of BTC development going absolutely nowhere, and the fees were unbearable. I wanted to use Bitcoin as cash. That's why I made the switch to Bitcoin Cash.

So, I made the announcement on my Twitter, and most of my BTC followers blocked me, called me a dumbass for falling for "Ver's scam", called me a scammer myself, and so on. I had actually never talked to Roger Ver before that day, and I actually didn't end up talking to him until months after the fact.

Right before making the switch to Bitcoin Cash, I had been developing an app called Crescent Pay. Crescent Pay was a BTC wallet focused on simplicity. Unlike Crescent Cash, Crescent Pay used a Cash App $cashtag style of aliases. So mine was $pokkst. This proved successful within the BTC community as it immediately took off, but I was not fully satisfied with it due to the centralized nature of the alias system, as it was stored on the crescentpay.app server.

Crescent Cash

After switching to Bitcoin Cash I began work on porting Crescent Pay, and creating Crescent Cash. During development I learned about Cash Accounts. This provided a decentralized alias system for addresses. While different than the cashtag-style alias system Crescent Pay used, it was still simple and familiar to people who have used Discord or Battle.net and the like, as the alias system is your name and a number appended to the end, like so: pokkst#12435 (this is my actual Cash Account).

So Crescent Cash launches but there were a few issues. The derivation path for wallets was non-standard (it used m/0' at launch. Standard is m/44'/145'/0'), and the bitcoincashj library I was using was severely outdated as the maintainer left for BSV. So I began work on maintaining bitcoincashj.

Also read: My bitcoincashj Development Update!

Crescent Cash quickly grew and new features have been added constantly since release. Crescent Cash is the first Bitcoin Cash wallet to feature full Cash Accounts support, and the first Bitcoin Cash wallet to feature CoinText SMS integration.

Crescent Cash was also the first mobile wallet to feature SLP token support. Among other firsts listed on the Crescent Cash homepage.

tipbitcoin.cash

In mid-June 2019, I launched tipbitcoin.cash. This platform is a Bitcoin Cash only tipping platform for livestreamers. It is fully non-custodial, and tips show up as Streamlabs alerts on stream. Since launch, we have been steadily growing, with over 100 streamers registered, and over one thousand tips made.

Bitcoin Cash Register

I have also been working on Bitcoin Cash Register at Bitcoin.com. Since working on the app, the UI has been completely overhauled with several fixes and improvements made to the point-of-sale app, with another update to be dropping soon with even more fixes and improvements!

There have been other projects that I've worked on, but these are the ones that I've stuck with and have been focused on improving. Some of the other projects I worked on were: my own VPN service (PlasmaVPN), and I also helped lay the foundation for Cash Accounts support in Electron Cash.

I've made many great friends since switching to Bitcoin Cash, and I do not regret my decision at all.

Here's to another year, and many more. :)

pokkst