For Bitcoin (BTC) To Go Mainstream It Needs To Stop Being A ‘Community’ And Become A ‘Necessity’

In the recent past, Bitcoin Cash (BCH) has been attracting attention thanks to its ability to scale without off-chain solutions. Notably, Ethereum’s co-founder, Vitalik Buterin, is suggesting the use of Bitcoin Cash as a short-term remedy for Ethereum’s scalability worse. Expectedly, event eh idea of supporting Roger Ver’s project is drawing criticism from all quarters with vocal critics suggesting that Ethereum 2.0 may be after all a mirage.

This is what Vitalik said about Bitcoin Cash:

“Bitcoin cash arguably fits the bill perfectly for a few reasons: High data throughput (32 MB per 600 sec = 53333 bytes per sec, compared to Ethereum ~8kb per sec which is already being used by applications). Very low fees (whereas BTC would be prohibitively expensive), We already have all the machinery we need to verify Bitcoin Cash blocks inside of Ethereum. [Therefore] we just need to repoint it to the BCH chain and turn it back on. Verifying BCH blocks is also quite cheap compared to, e.g. ETC blocks. Additionally, the BCH community seems to be friendly to people using their chain for whatever they want as long as they pay the tx (transaction) fees.”

BCH Voted To Replace BTC

More than using BCH as a second layer on the Ethereum blockchain, Bitcoin Cash is being voted to take the place of Bitcoin (BTC) for “mankind adoption.” This suggestion has been backed with hard evidence on why Bitcoin Cash has a steeper adoption cured when pitted against Bitcoin.

For example, Square Crypto, a Twitter user, said:

“Companies whose futures depend on the success of Bitcoin should create roles that deal exclusively with making a case for mass adoption to the general public. We go mainstream when Bitcoin stops being a community and starts being a necessity.”

By all means, BCH has surpassed BTC in intentionally conducting a mass adoption campaign. While Bitcoin is propagating itself as a store of value, Bitcoin Cash is fronting itself as “sound money that is usable by everyone in the world.”

More Brick And Mortar Merchants Accepting BCH

Furthermore, the adoption of BCH has over time been growing with more merchants integrating BCH as a payment option. For instance, there are over 1,200 merchants around the world accepting payments in Bitcoin Cash. Surprisingly, the number of brick and mortar businesses accepting BCH has increased to reach 670 retailers.

Additionally, some in the crypto circles think that the Bitcoin community has failed to “merge with the general public.” Unfortunately, others argue that the major hindrance for BTC adoption is the lack of a community altogether.

Blockstream’s CSO, Samson Mow notes:

“[For Bitcoin] there is no community, just users, and as a SoV (store of value) it won’t go mainstream, just like how gold is not mainstream.”

Despite Hard Fork Troubles, BCH Soldiered On

Interestingly, BCH has been resilient despite some controversial hard forks in the past. For instance, a system-wide upgrade on the BCH network in May led to a temporary split of the network. The upgrade was later riddled with issues caused by a mining bug. Observers noted that the bug created empty transaction blocks.

A Redditor said:

“Looks like there was a small bug in the mempool-acceptance rules for after the [hard fork]. From what I currently understand, it looks like the operation count was being validated with the old rules, not the new rules.”

Then again, on August 1 2017, Bitcoin Cash was forked from the Bitcoin Core blockchain. On November 15 2018, the Bitcoin Cash network was forked to create Bitcoin SV. Bitcoin Cash became Bitcoin Cash ABC or simply BCH.

After the November hard fork, a BCHABC and BSV battle for hash power ensued with BCHABC having the upper hand. Currently, BCH is ranked 5th with a market cap of $5.1 billion and changing hands at $285. On the other hand, BSV–backed by the controversial Craig Wright, is ranked 9th with a market cap of $2.9billion and trading at $160 a pop.