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Tokens on Bitcoin SV in 18 months?

This summer there has been much discussion online about tokenization on Bitcoin SV. The catalysts for this discussion have been the emergence of more promised (but not yet delivered) token solutions such as Bayesian, and more talk.

The 18 months away Coming Soon™ meme of the Lightning Network that BSVer’s love to use against BTC shills now applies to every token solution on Bitcoin SV. No matter how much it is stated that BSV is capable of executing tokens faster, cheaper and more reliably than Ethereum it does not matter until one of these platforms is used.

This is analogous to basketball pundits claiming that an NBA prospect is capable of being the next Michael Jordan or Shaquille O’Neal. Until the player fulfills this potential, the prediction is meaningless. (See NBA bust Kwame Brown for an example).

To hammer this point home, competing ledger BCH does not have script unlocked, has a capped block size, a tiny data carrier limit and a does not have a protocol set in stone, and still has better token solutions than BSV.

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The hard truth is that despite these other chain’s technical flaws they are gaining traction with their ‘DeFi’ narrative. Token after token launches with ease despite their legal status, generating more buzz around the supposed altcoin that cannot scale.

The tired BSV narrative is that ‘they are just all illegal ICOs!’ or ‘no one is actually using them!’ An objective view could be that these critics are just jealous of these token launches and have caused their prices to rise greater than BSV this summer.

Continuing the subject of narrative, BSV’s pitch has been that it is the ‘regulatory-compliant’ ledger. Meanwhile, token launches on Ethereum continue to break the law with impunity. Its founder Vitalik Buterin still has not faced any legal consequences for the ETH’s token pre-sale back in 2014. This rogue nature (legal or not) has the benefit of promoting experimentation in the market.

Imagine if Uber waited for regulators to give them permission to operate. Uber would not have been as successful and foregone significant potential revenue.

Not every unapproved token implementation justifies its founder(s) potentially being placed behind bars but the fearmongering in BSV seems to have convinced entrepreneurs that is the case.

A belief seems to exist that all tokens need to obtain bureaucratic approval prior to launch. Non-fungible tokens (NFTs), reward points, badges, game items and so on do not require such compliance and are nowhere to be found on the BSV ledger. runonbitcoin is capable of this, but again is not officially released yet.

Caption: If you understand this tweet, this is how BSV goes ‘to the moon’

We need to encourage businesses and entrepreneurs to play around with different solutions to find out what is viable. Asserting that only government approved solutions are welcome is the same as claiming that spam transactions are not allowed, which again is a criticism of BTC.

The entire point of an open ledger is that anyone can use it for anything (if miners agree to process the transactions). Unfortunately, this does include crime, but only those who are involved in it are culpable.

We should welcome ‘altcoiners’ to launch their tokens, ICOs and DeFi products on BSV.

This will create demand, attention, more transactions (thus fees for miners) and likely a price rise—what is there to complain about? Most importantly these developments will demonstrate BSV’s ability to scale.

If those issuers do violate the law, then all they would be doing is making an example out of themselves that caters to the repeated narrative that the Bitcoin open ledger is the last place to conduct criminal activity.

Stay tuned as I will be doing a deep dive into all the various currently known tokenized solutions on BSV and a few that are in the pipeline.

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