A couple of days ago, it was revealed that one of the main Bitcoin Cash (BCHABC) mining pools, BTC.com, had begun mining Bitcoin SV (BSV). There are many reasons why a switch like this could be made, but the most obvious is the increase in transactions seen on the BSV blockchain. The change came without any notice, perhaps in an attempt to keep it under wraps, but the watchful eyes of the cryptocurrency community don’t miss anything. Roger Ver, owner of Bitcoin.com, an established BCHABC proponent and a “crypto anarchist,” as some describe him, hasn’t specifically acknowledged that BTC.com is no longer behind BCHABC, but he did make a reference to Bitcoin.com losing its “biggest miner.” Perhaps more than one is abandoning ship.
According to a Reddit post that asked, “So what’s going on with Bitcoin.com mining pool?”, Ver responded by stating, “One of our biggest miners is starting their own pool so while I’m sad Bitcoin.com is loosing [sic] some of our hash rate, BCH will be more decentralized than before.”
Ver incidentally acknowledges that BCHABC was not decentralized, one of the key components to a proper crypto project. There is certainly a bit of uncertainty regarding whether or not he was referring to BTC.com or not, given that he mentions the miner starting their own pool, not that BTC.com is switching to BSV.
Someone in the thread tried to assert that Ver’s “head of mining” had said that the BCHABC mining activity, which has dropped somewhat recently, was due to “normal variance. However, the poster rightfully points out, since the miner is now gone, that the Bitcoin.com employee must have “been lying or were not well informed.”
Perhaps miners are catching on to the lost proposition that is BCHABC mining. Another Reddit thread breaks down the lack of value in mining the particular coin, explaining that the average for July 3 represented a loss in value of 13.56%. In other words, mining BCHABC costs more than what miners can earn.
The poster, “youcallthatabigblock,” asserts that it is more lucrative to SegWitCoin (BTC) and then sell what they mined to BCHABC for a profit. He states, “Which means BCH miners could mine Bitcoin instead of BCH, then sell that mined Bitcoin for BCH, then have 13.5% more BCH then they would of [sic] had if they were a BCH miner. That is irrational behavior, even if you are pro BCH and wanted more BCH in your bag.”
He points out that BCHABC is suffering from a lack of hash power that has been continuing for the past couple of weeks and that BCHABC miners are mining at a loss each day. He asks an important question that deserves an answer. He wants to know “who’s footing the bill for the loss of keeping the BCHABC chain secure?”
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