Chang Yong: Suggestions for a rational and harmonious fork of BCH

One begets two, two begets three, and three begets all things. Just like biological evolution and market prosperity, the bifurcation of decentralized ecology is inevitable. Only through bifurcation can we maximize the opportunities for development and success in the event of major consensus differences.

However, decentralized cryptocurrencies have not yet learned to adapt to forks. In the several forks between POW and POS, BTC and ETH, ETH and ETC, BTC and BCH, BCH and BSV, the struggle has intensified and the mutual harm has become greater and greater.

Learning and trying rational and harmonious forks has become the key to the healthy evolution of decentralized cryptocurrencies, which is something Satoshi Nakamoto did not anticipate and did not provide a solution for.

Another inherent flaw of the Nakamoto framework is the lack of a public governance mechanism in the decentralized model. This was the root cause of the BTC expansion dispute and two fork wars in the past, and is also the direct reason why BCH is facing another fork now.

Currently, the BCH community is divided into two groups:

ABC insists on using 8% of the block's new coin output (coinbase) as the Infrastructure Development Fund (IFP), and has written it into the ABC0.22 node version upgraded on November 15. This fund goes into the address where ABC holds the private key, and the fund's management and distribution plan has not yet been clarified.

Opponents believe that the governance fund leads to the centralization of the BCH ecosystem, which deviates from the essence of decentralized cryptocurrency. Therefore, they firmly oppose ABC's upgrade plan, and BCHN develops and releases the BCHN22.0 node version without IFP.

Based on the current views and behaviors of both parties, it is difficult to reach a compromise and a fork is inevitable.

In this case, it is wisest and most beneficial to all parties in the BCH ecosystem to accept the reality of the upcoming fork and realize the first rational and harmonious fork in the history of decentralized cryptocurrency:

1. ABC’s IFP exploration is beneficial. Inefficient public governance is a key issue that has long restricted the development of BCH. The first step to solving the governance problem is to have a public governance fund. In any case, ABC joined the IFP and took the first step to form a public fund from public output. This is a beneficial exploration.

2. The non-IFP version guarantees the direction of decentralization. The biggest risk of IFP is that it leads to the centralization of the BCH ecosystem. Once the governance fund management is centralized, the centralized trend of the ecosystem will be difficult to reverse. Therefore, before ABC successfully experiments with decentralized governance fund management methods, it must protect the decentralized BCH ecosystem.

3. No one will be hurt if there is no mutual attack. The fork itself does not cause any harm, the coins will not be reduced, and the mining income will not be reduced. In the forks of BTC and BCH, the total coin price and miners' income have even increased significantly. The damage of each fork in history came from mutual attacks between the two sides, including verbal attacks, computing power attacks, public opinion smears, mutual market crashes, etc. The BSV fork fully demonstrated this. Without these attacks, no one would be really hurt, at most there would be some sadness.

4. Show the world the evolution of BCH. Reproduction, mutation, and survival of the fittest are the laws of natural evolution. BCH has begun its natural evolution since the moment it forked from BTC. Achieving a rational and harmonious fork will be an important milestone, indicating that the natural evolution of BCH has embarked on a rational path.

Therefore, I call on all parties in the BCH ecosystem to calmly accept the consensus differences and prepare for a harmonious and rational fork:

1. Give up the "never fork" doctrine. The "never fork" doctrine was an important weapon used by Bitcoin Core to hijack public opinion and destroy the New York Consensus in 2017. In 2018, CSW tried to use it to become the leader of the BCH community, but was discovered and failed, and then forked BSV. Now, we need to clearly give up this doctrine that seems loyal, but is actually easily exploited by a few people, hinders evolution, and has been repeatedly slapped in the face.

2. Negotiate the naming of both parties. The essential contradiction of the fork lies in the naming of the two branches. How to smoothly realize the naming of the two branches is the key to whether the fork can be harmonious. It is recommended that both parties consider the characteristics, directions, and community support of the two branches comprehensively, negotiate rationally, and reach a consensus on the naming as soon as possible, and the subsequent problems will be solved.

3. Exchanges make preparations. After the naming consensus is reached, all parties in the community should coordinate with major exchanges and wallets, browsers and other facilities to prepare for forking and naming, and issue advance notices to users. Exchanges are encouraged to open futures trading of the two branches to form market prices.

4. Keep the hash rate neutral. It is recommended that all SHA256 algorithm mining pools, mining farms, and miners keep the hash rate neutral in this fork, and only decide on a self-interested mining strategy based on the relative price formed by the exchange. Both chains are the source of wealth for miners. Do not attack any chain, and there is no need to be loyal to any chain. Protecting the normal operation of both chains is a rational behavior that benefits both the mining industry and others.

5. Add replay protection. Both parties in the dispute should protect the interests of users, maintain the security of exchanges and other facilities, and implement replay protection in the code. Exchanges and wallets should be prepared to help users separate, store and trade the two currencies.

6. Maintain mutual respect. The parties to the disagreement should respect each other, understand the rationality of the other party's version, seek common ground while reserving differences, and leave the right and wrong to the market to verify. You can freely express your own judgment and logic and oppose the judgment and logic of the other party, but do not attack others' motives, character, personality, or even private life, etc. These can only bring more mutual harm.

7. Beware of sowing discord. Identify and beware of malicious sowing discord from some Core supporters, BSV supporters, market short sellers, and some people who lost money in BCH investment and turned to hate BCH. What they most want to see is that the BCH community hurts each other due to disagreements and forks. Some Core supporters did this when BSV forked, and this time, they will do it together.

8. Discuss the governance plan. ABC's IFP governance plan is not mature yet. A bad governance plan will make this fork meaningless. On the premise of accepting the fork, we should discuss and optimize the governance plan with ABC. Let BCH take an important step in governance. I started studying the governance issues of the Satoshi framework in 2016 and conducted experiments in FCH. The overall success is willing to share relevant experiences and lessons.

9. Code and application sharing. After the fork, the underlying developers and application developers of both parties can still collaborate on development and share code. The underlying development code can be adopted by each other, and the upper-layer applications can be implemented in the two ecosystems respectively, and even jointly support the development of cross-chain functions or applications.

10. It is recommended to hold both coins in the short term. Before and after the fork, there may be fluctuations in market prices. It is recommended that the majority of coin holders, especially whales who hold a large amount of coins, adopt a dual holding strategy in the short term and gradually adjust their investment strategies after the market stabilizes.

In fact, since the overall market is currently on an upward trend, if the naming problem can be solved and the above points can be achieved, this BCH fork will not only not cause losses, but will also create more opportunities and gain more market attention.

It is hoped that all parties can calm down from the previous fierce differences, be tolerant of each other, think rationally, solve problems together, fork rationally and harmoniously, and accelerate the evolution of the ecosystem.

(The author Liu Changyong is responsible for the opinions in this article. Thanks to Rymd and Su for translating it into English, and thanks to Cindy for revising the translation.)