Why Bitmain’s hash war reminds me of Darius III at The Battle of Gaugamela

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1,000,000 miners lined up on the plains in formation.

Are they real? Rumours are surfacing that Bitmain has some 1,000,000 “Ghost miners” ready to spring to action to mine BCH (rather than BTC, where the vast amount of Bitmain-controlled mining pool hash now mines) to pervert Bitcoin technology to its Wormhole tech Nov 15^th at the next scheduled Bitcoin BCH network upgrade. It’s possible that at least some of this information may be correct, as Bitmain does have a history of not following the rules and especially of throwing its customers under the bus.

We here at CoinGeek have made something of an industry of reporting on Bitmain’s problems and double dealings and how this is likely going to kill their IPO chances. We have also explained in detail a number of times why Bitmain’s WormHole plans are reckless and self-serving at best. And we have also covered their hardware design teams leaving the company and its inability to stay competitive with their hardware offerings.

However, this new rumour brings up another issue, one that goes to the heart of whether or not anyone can trust them. I know I don’t. I bought over US$100 million from them leading up to Q1 of this year and I can confirm they would never have gotten one Bitcoin BCH from me if I would have known they were going to use my money to try to kill the only technology that actually works as money to the world today.

Since we already know that the entire Mining industry, other than those paid or supported by Bitmain, support Satoshi Vision and will be joining CoinGeek’s side pre upgrade, there are only two possibilities here. Either: (1) this hash is a bluff and will soon be exposed as such; or (2) it’s real and is a kind of fraud or cheating by Bitmain unfairly using its conflicted interests as a hardware sales operation (and a controller of public mining pools which now largely mine BTC not BCH) to stomp on the interests of its own clients.

My purpose in writing this article is to outline my argument that: it is unconscionable that Bitmain should be rewarded for violating its obligations to its BTC mining pool customers by suddenly turning on or moving “ghost miners” to BCH (when its mining pool customers expected to be mining BTC) and operating in violation of the rules of Nakamoto Consensus that the longest chain is a chain of truly competing miners (who I repeat are in fact Bitmain-controlled mining pool customers who invested a lot of money that went to Bitmain to compete fairly).

I have already publicly stated that “I will support the longest Chain” with the most Proof of Work to be recognized as BCH. What I meant by this is the longest chain of legitimate miners competing with each other as outlined in the original Satoshi white paper and as is supported by all who support Satoshi Vision. I still maintain this pledge. I will not, however, follow Bitmain down a rabbit hole of their own making based on cheating by Bitmain.

Furthermore, the longest chain needs to be determined by legitimate, sustained hash power from miners. It would be ridiculously unfair for Bitmain to move or activate 1,000,000 “ghost miners” onto the BCH network only for a temporary basis starting November 15 or short bursts of time, in order to potentially declare an artificial victory in a BCH hash war—but then quickly deactivate those miners or intermittently move them back to the BTC network, while neglecting their own clients. Proof of Work is about true investment to provide computing power and security for the Bitcoin network; it’s a long term commitment, not a one-night stand. Therefore, the longest chain with the most Proof of Work should be determined by what is legitimate, sustained hash power by miners who are truly committing long-term investment for BCH.

If Bitmain cheats and forces a fork to its own new coin—running its backed Bitcoin ABC changes to the original Bitcoin protocol and also supporting Wormhole—this will result in a chain fork. The entire industry minus Bitmain and friends will stay with Satoshi Vision (as represented by the new Bitcoin SV and other compatible implementations) and this will be the longest legitimate chain as outlined in the original white paper. The Satoshi Vision chain will be the sole remaining version of true Bitcoin in the world and will deserve to remain being called Bitcoin BCH at exchanges globally.

Bitmain can move forward with its Wormhole coin and onto its Wormhole technology that will eventually kill the underlying chain and move to its centralized (with Bitmain) Proof of Stake Wormhole platform. If exchanges want to have this token on their exchanges they can call it what it is, WHL. Exchanges need to make a stand and protect Bitcoin by recognizing Bitcoin BCH as the longest chain with the most legitimate, sustained Proof of Work.

If they do, Bitcoin will survive as Satoshi Vision will have won the day due to legitimate hash investment in spite of all attempts by Darius to cheat on the battlefield.

CoinGeek will actively fight any efforts by Bitmain to fork away from a Satoshi Vision version of Bitcoin.