Bitcoin thought leader Joshua Henslee recently released a new video about how the SV suffix in Bitcoin SV (BSV) is temporary and that the network will eventually be called Bitcoin.
BSV will become known as Bitcoin as the network scales
Henslee begins by saying he knows what he’s saying is bold, but he believes it because the entire digital currency industry has one key thing wrong; that Bitcoin can not scale. He reminds us that in mathematics, when your assumption is false, everything that comes after it is invalid. He points to BSV today, even as it’s operating at a fraction of what it’s capable of, as evidence that almost everybody got this wrong.
“That assumption is incorrect. Bitcoin does work, and it can be used for everything,” Henslee says.
He speculates that this is one of the reasons so many people give Dr. Craig Wright a hard time—he’s been saying this all along, making their efforts to create alternative blockchains and digital currencies misguided and unnecessary.
“He said the internet would be a side chain,” Henslee reminds us.
Henslee looks back to when Bill Gates was on The Late Show with David Letterman in the early ’90s talking about email, and the comedian made fun of him, drawing parallels with how people laugh at the grand visions in BSV today. “People couldn’t comprehend moving forward,” he says, again drawing parallels with what’s happening today. He says that, among those who do understand blockchain’s capabilities, a mindset of “my coin went up and I’m rich, so I was right” has taken over, pointing out how illogical this argument is.
The illogical argument for a multi-chain world
Henslee then addresses the argument that Bitcoin failed to scale, and there will be many different blockchains. He reminds us that this argument depends on looking back at what has already taken place rather than looking to a future in which Bitcoin scales.
“We know these networks don’t scale,” Henslee says, pointing out how the Lightning Network is always 18 months away from mass adoption, all of Ethereum’s promises fall flat, and blockchains like Solana repeatedly implode when tested.
“These top blockchains that have tried to solve scaling have totally failed,” he states.
Henslee then tells a story about when he used to live in San Jose, California. He recalls how he’d see lots of fancy offices in expensive buildings, but when he would look them up online to find out more, he’d inevitably find they had no product. “It’s entirely VC loan-backed. The money is just poured in, but they’re not actually doing anything,” he says, pointing out how Silicon Valley is driven by these bad incentives to make something sound good to secure funding.
Rightly, Henslee wonders how the VC-backed ‘crypto’ leaders are going to lead us into the new world when they either haven’t built anything or have entirely failed when they have tried. Moreover, entrepreneurs who have tried to build serious applications on these chains have moved off of them due to their inherent technical limitations. To him, this outlook is illogical.
People need to realize what Bitcoin is capable of
Rather than raising yet another VC round for another blockchain, Henslee believes people need to realize what Bitcoin can be used for in terms of building value-generating businesses.
“We can’t predict how it’s going to be adopted. It could be something random,” Henslee says, reiterating his view that it will likely be a game that causes Bitcoin micropayments to take off—perhaps something on Haste Arcade. Other potential triggers of mass adoption are businesses adopting BSV as a data ledger and implementing Bitcoin with IPv6.
“This is where people really need to expand their minds,” Henslee says, highlighting how massive the scale and potential of this route is.
Whatever the trigger may be, Henslee points out that when the demand increases, the price of Bitcoin tokens is highly likely to follow. “Nobody can predict the timing, but we can have a good outlook of what it looks like,” he says, reminding us that it’s up to entrepreneurs to take these risks and show businesses how they can benefit from adopting their Bitcoin-based solutions.
Wrapping up, Henslee speculates that, ironically, the payments use case for Bitcoin might be last due to its volatility. He thinks that Bitcoin will be used as electronic cash globally after it’s used for everything else.
Key takeaways from this Joshua Henslee video
- Henslee reminds us that Bitcoin scales and can be used for a plethora of use cases. Dr. Craig Wright was correct, and the Crypto Bros were once again wrong.
- The case for a multi-chain world is illogical. The alternatives to BSV don’t work and were never necessary. It’s all just a gimmick to raise funds from venture capitalists.
- People need to expand their minds and realize the potential of the Bitcoin network. It’s primarily up to entrepreneurs to build solutions on BSV to bring in more users and demonstrate what Bitcoin can do for them.
Watch: The BSV Global Blockchain Convention presentation, LiteClient: Scaling Blockchain with Simplified Payment Verification
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