Continued Bitcoin Cash developer infighting shows a problematic future

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In a strange twist of fate to the once-cohesive singular unit that was Bitcoin Cash (BCH), it appears that things might be starting to break down. There is already a certain degree of harmonic dissonance among BCH developers, as witnessed by the discussion between Amaury Séchet and Jonathan Toomim, which indicated differing opinion on how the BCH mainnet should be used. That rift seems to potentially widening as the latest interaction on the BCH Stress Testnet Telegram group indicates. The latest seems to be more serious, though, as it appears the BCHABC development group has lost its financial support.

Based on the conversation in the group, there is evidence that money troubles exist, and possibly always have. They say that you get what you pay for and Séchet alludes to the fact that the BCH primary developers have been sourcing cheap labor, which may explain the blockchain’s inability to make any real progress in the past six months. Séchet asserts, “…[We] are trailing further and further away from core at this point in time, and if that is not addressed, we effectively lose the work of ~10 [developers] that work for us for cheap at the moment (we only need to review and merge their code). Effectively we’d find ourselves in an impossible situation where we racked so much tech debt that it’ll take years to dig ourselves out of the hole if we can at all – it’s doubtful that the crypto market is willing [to] wait for years.”

"we're trailing further & further away from core at this point in time, & if that is not addressed, we effectively lose the work of ~10 devs that work for us for cheap ATM (we only need to review and merge their code). Effectively we'd find ourselves in an impossible situation" pic.twitter.com/wsjVq8dKfk

— 🌅YoBits🌅 (@YobitsVision) May 15, 2019

Going off on a tangent for a second, part of Séchet’s statement shows exactly why Toomim’s belief that the mainnet can be used for testing without any issue. Séchet states that the core developers only have to “review and merge” the code of the cheaper developers. This just screams “accident waiting to happen,” but it appears, at least to some developers, that this isn’t an issue. But, I digress. 

Toomim believes that the solution to the development problem is to find more, cheaper developers or for the developers to do their best to keep up to date with core when they can. Alternatively, the developers can relegate fixing issues or adding new tech to the back of the line and make keeping up with core developers a priority. 

CoinGeek has reached out to Toomim for his side of the story, but he has yet to respond.

BCH has been around for almost two years and was reportedly implemented by existing Bitcoin Core (BTC) developers. It seems odd that, after so much time, they would still not have a clear plan of attack in place and would be apparently just be flying by the seat of their pants. On May 15, the BCH network underwent a protocol upgrade; however, some clients are reportedly “having some issues. On Twitter, there were reports that ABC software is failing although Bitcoin Unlimited appears “to be fine.”

Spam Blocker on BCH: successfully activated https://t.co/AsF8rGBv0j

— 𝕳𝖆𝖌𝖇𝖆𝖗𝖉 (@hagbarddd) May 15, 2019