Everyone by now is aware of what’s going on with Bitcoin Cash and the results of the hard fork. The BCH ecosystem has basically been turned upside down as the community still tries to provide some semblance of order to the cryptocurrency, but it seems that developers with Bitcoin ABC are doing exactly what Bitcoin SV supporters had feared—throwing everything they can at the network. The only thing that’s left is to try to toss in the kitchen sink.
Since November 15, Bitcoin ABC developers have introduced a number of changes that seem to be indicative of a “let’s see what sticks” mentality. The changes have mostly been found through the group’s GitHub repository, which indicates that developers—even through Wednesday—were still playing around with the code.
The disappointing part is that the developers apparently haven’t been willing to let the community know ahead of time about the changes. This smacks of draconian attempts to control the network, regardless of what the entire community may feel is best for the blockchain and shows that the developers are content with treating BCH as their own personal sandbox.
A conversation on the Bitcoin Unlimited (BU) Slack proves that developers from ABC were not willing to share their updates with the rest of the community. Tom Harding, a Bitcoin XT developer, points out, “I did not know about the 10-deep floating block finalizing,” in response to someone asking if BU knew of the upgrades. Another user, “ptschip,” also said that the first he heard of an upgrade was “when their release came out.”
As one user, “painlord2K,” aptly put it, “So BCH is ABC coin now. No doubts about it.”
The world gets it—developers have to develop. It’s in their nature; it’s who they are. This isn’t an issue in and of itself. It only becomes an issue when certain individuals feel that they are better equipped to make decisions for the community and will stop at nothing to force their opinions on everyone else, despite extreme opposition.
Cryptocurrency is too important to be utilized as a playground—that’s why testnets exist. BCH has to have a solid foundation to evolve and mature, but Bitcoin ABC developers are proving that they’re happy with the currency operating in moving sand and, possibly, quicksand.
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