The cycle of history: BSV returns to CZ after four years

After four years, from resolutely delisting BSV to launching 50x leverage contracts.

The price of the ancient cryptocurrency Bitcoin SV (BSV) has experienced several ups and downs this year, reaching its highest point this year on October 20. The most direct reason for this impressive increase may be the announcement made by Binance earlier today that it will launch BSV 1-50x U-based perpetual contracts.

It is not uncommon for cryptocurrencies to see a sharp increase in price after being listed on Binance. After all, Binance is now a well-deserved giant among trading platforms. However, when "Binance" is linked to "BSV", the community will first think of an announcement issued by Binance four years ago to delist BSV.

At that time, CZ's influence in the crypto community was far less than that of the number "4" today. Binance was only established for two years, and BNB's market value ranking had just entered the top ten in the world, and it was not yet a trading platform giant. But at that time, CZ also often actively participated in community topics. When faced with Craig Wright's claim that he was Satoshi Nakamoto, he tweeted to denounce him and removed BSV from Binance, saying that it was a contribution to the blockchain ecosystem.

In the eyes of the community at the time, CZ's decision to delist BSV was "very attitude-oriented" and gained a good reputation and attention. However, no one expected that four years later, Binance would launch a BSV contract with a leverage of up to 50 times.

Craig Wright and BSV: The debate over whether Satoshi Nakamoto is real or fake

Back in 2017, developers who supported large blocks launched a hard fork of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, which directly increased the block size to 8 megabytes. The Bitcoin community officially split into two camps. Those who supported small blocks continued to maintain the original Bitcoin blockchain, while those who supported large blocks created a new Bitcoin Cash blockchain.

After the first fork, BTC and BCH chains developed independently, but it is clear that "there are only 0 and countless forks." A year later, in November 2018, BCH, which once again experienced a computing power war, was hard forked into BCH ABC and BSV.

What’s interesting is that Craig S. Wrigh, the founder of BSV, has always claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto in various public occasions, and he has been making a big fuss about it after the fork. During the 2018 Deconomy conference, Craig Wright was invited to participate in the "Bitcoin, Controversy over Principle" symposium. When he was giving a speech on the topic of Lightning Network, Craig Wright was bluntly called a liar by Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin .

As for the controversy over whether Craig Wright is really Satoshi Nakamoto, there is still no definite answer to this day, after all, he has not provided conclusive evidence.

In the eyes of most community members, since Craig Wright cannot provide any on-chain behavior as evidence to prove that he is Satoshi Nakamoto, this is an elaborate hype and scam.

However, four years ago, BlockBeats interviewed Craig Wright, who said he didn't care about how others ridiculed and questioned him. He has 871 patents and 1,500 papers, and will keep working hard. He also reiterated that Bitcoin is not anonymous, but private, and is centered around government regulation.

At the same time, in some interviews, Craig Wright demonstrated his technical attainments when expressing his insights and views on blockchain technology, so he was once called "the person closest to Satoshi Nakamoto in technology."

CZ was also a member of "we are all hodlonaut"

At the same time that Craig Wright claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto, the crypto community was spreading the experiment of "Bitcoin Lightning Torch Relay", sending a Bitcoin transaction of 100,000 satoshis (the smallest unit of Bitcoin, equal to 0.001 Bitcoin) through the Lightning Network. The recipient of this transaction will then add 10,000 satoshis and send it to the next participant, and so on. If the torch contains a larger amount than last year before it fails, it means that the network has grown.

The momentum of the Bitcoin Lightning Torch Relay attracted many well-known people, including financial giant Fidelity Investments, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, Lightning Labs engineer Joost Jager, and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey. Today's "crypto top streamers" CZ and Justin Sun also participated in the experiment.

Craig Wright's statement that he is Satoshi Nakamoto naturally aroused disgust and dissatisfaction among the participants of the "Bitcoin Lightning Torch Relay". They believed that Craig Wright's behavior was undoubtedly undermining the credibility of Bitcoin and the valuable encryption spirit.

Hodlonaut, the initiator of the “Lightning Torch Relay”, often ridiculed or denied CSW, which angered CSW. On April 12, 2019, CSW claimed that he would file a lawsuit against Hodlonaut and publicly offered a reward of 70 BSV (about 5,000 US dollars) to collect Hodlonaut’s personal information.

Under pressure, Hodlonaut cancelled his account, but this became a catalyst, causing anger in the BTC community. People who had previously opposed CSW formed a spontaneous alliance. Many people changed their Twitter nicknames to Hodlonaut and their avatars to Hodlonaut's former avatars to show their support for "We are all Hodlonaut". Some members also started fundraising for Hodlonaut's legal aid fund. CZ was also a member of "we are all hodlonaut".

Delisting BSV is a contribution to the blockchain ecosystem

At that time, CZ had just emerged and his influence in the crypto community was far less than it is now, but he fully expressed his tough attitude, publicly criticizing Craig Wright on Twitter and warning that Binance would delist BSV if he continued to claim that he was Satoshi Nakamoto. This was CZ's resistance to Craig Wright's threat to sue Hodlonaut.

"Craig Wright is not Satoshi. Anymore of this sh!t, we delist!" CZ made a harsh statement. This tweet attracted a lot of attention, and CZ's behavior was described as "threatening to delist BSV."

As the CEO of Binance, CZ's remarks will inevitably affect the market conditions on its trading platform. He has revealed in many interviews that he is unwilling to interfere with market behavior, but for this statement, CZ said, "I am not a technical team, but I am against fraud. Before signing, everyone is Satoshi Nakamoto, except Craig Wright."

On April 15, Binance fulfilled its previous warning and officially delisted BSV. The announcement mentioned several factors that were considered when delisting the token, one of which was "contribution to the entire blockchain ecosystem."

Unexpectedly, after the announcement, the market price of BSV plummeted by 12%, falling to the 13th place in market value. But BCH rose in response. Although Binance was not the only trading platform to delist BSV during the same period, no one expected CZ to be so clear-cut and tough, which undoubtedly increased Binance's influence in the community.

At the same time, most BSV community members actually think this is a good thing. By delisting BSV from Binance, BSV has moved one step closer to decentralization.

Binance’s choice: from resolutely delisting BSV to launching 50x leverage contracts

Four years ago, what drove Binance’s decision to delist BSV was their firm stance of speaking for the cryptocurrency community and upholding the “Do the right thing” principle.

Four years later, Binance launched a BSV contract with a leverage of up to 50 times, which caused the price of BSV to surge by nearly 30% in just two hours.

Someone commented that "BSV is the real Bitcoin, and CSW is undoubtedly the real Satoshi Nakamoto." Although such views are more of a joke or irony, the narrative of the cryptocurrency circle is very different now, and CZ is no longer keen to express his attitude.

After all, that was four years ago.

From resolutely delisting BSV to launching 50x leverage contracts, why did Binance's choice change so drastically?

Many people have pointed out that CZ’s public opinions sometimes do not align with his private actions. For example, in 2018, Sequoia Capital and Binance had a huge disagreement when negotiating financing matters. Sequoia Capital sued CZ in a Hong Kong court for violating the investment exclusivity agreement. CZ denied the allegations, and the lawsuit lasted for several years.

At that time, CZ posted on Twitter that in the future all projects applying to be listed on Binance will need to disclose whether they have direct or indirect connections with Sequoia Capital.

But a few years later, as Binance's relationship with Sequoia gradually warmed up, this requirement seemed to no longer exist.

In a previous interview, CZ talked about this. "The lawsuit lasted for several years, and we finally won a comprehensive victory. A few years after the lawsuit ended, at our invitation, this potential investment institution also became a limited partner of Binance Labs' second fund. I am very happy to say that we still maintain a good relationship with them and most of the problems can be solved."

This also shows that Binance’s public decisions may not always reflect its final strategy. There are also views that people’s ideas and positions will change over time and as the real situation evolves. After all, this happened four years ago.

Do the right thing at the right time

With the market's trading volume and attention, choosing the right time to launch contracts is one of Binance's marketing strategies as a trading platform. For example, before the news that DODO was marketed by DWF Labs came out, after a 24-hour increase of more than 50%, Binance immediately launched DODO's 20x U-based perpetual contract.

For a long time this year, the biggest narrative in the entire cryptocurrency circle has been the Bitcoin ecosystem. When Ordinals was hot, Binance launched Ordinal NFT, Ordinals engraving and other services. And we all know that this week, the hottest topic is whether the Bitcoin spot ETF will be approved or not.

On October 16, the news that the Bitcoin ETF was approved by the SEC was published on social media by the old cryptocurrency media Cointelegraph in all capital letters. But the market soon found something wrong. After multiple sources came forward to refute the rumor, it was determined that the news was suspected to be fake news, and nothing could be found to confirm this. BlackRock said that its Bitcoin spot ETF application is still under review by the SEC. Cointelegraph has also deleted the fake news tweets it posted previously and apologized.

Although it was confirmed to be fake news, the market reaction was indeed real. Bitcoin, with a market value of 550 billion US dollars, broke through multiple integers and reached 30,000 US dollars. Everyone shouted: "The bull market is back."

This may be one of the reasons why Binance relisted BSV and launched a 50x leverage contract at this time. After all, as time goes by and the market environment changes, CZ and Binance are facing new challenges and pressures, which leads to changes in decision-making and positions. This is not only to adapt to the environment, but also for survival and development.

Recalling that when CZ decided to delist BSV, he firmly said "Do the right thing", this not only represents CZ's decision at the time, but also reflects Binance's values ​​and position.

Under the circumstances at the time, Binance was doing the right thing by resolutely delisting BSV. Now that circumstances have changed, isn’t CZ also doing the right thing by relisting BSV’s 50x leveraged contract?