Chaos in the cryptocurrency world: miners revolt, developers defect, conspiracy theories prevail

That afternoon, looking up from the gaps between Hong Kong skyscrapers, the sky was a fiery red. Rody took out his phone to take a picture of the scene, and then posted a message on WeChat Moments, "This sky is very Halloween." That day was Halloween.

Afterwards, he picked up "Australian Satoshi Nakamoto" Craig Steven Wright (hereinafter referred to as CSW) from the Hong Kong airport, who was wearing a blue suit.

Previously, the CSW team invited miners around the world to hold a summit titled "Bitcoin BCH Miner Choice" in Hong Kong on November 2, where CSW tried to win over the computing power of miners.

At 0:40 am Beijing time on November 16, BCH will execute a hard fork, and the BCH fork dispute between Wu Jihan and CSW will finally come to a conclusion.

The story goes back even further.

On August 1, 2017, Bitcoin-ABC, ViaBTC, BU development team and other original Bitcoin core development teams hard forked Bitcoin, and BCH was born. In fact, this fork was led by Wu Jihan and was called the ABC version. In May this year, BCH completed its first hard fork. At that time, the development teams reached a consensus at the time of the fork, and no new forked coins were generated, and the block size was increased from 8M to 32M.

According to the BCH development roadmap, the BCH community will perform a hard fork on BCH every 6 months. The original ABC team planned that the November fork would add two lines of opcodes to support smart contracts, giving BCH more room for exploration and more flexibility for developers. At the same time, it can also connect to the IBC database, change the data storage method, and prepare for sharding.

However, in August, nChain, led by CSW, suddenly announced that they would create a BSV node client, making BCH much closer to the original Bitcoin protocol. BSV is known as "Bitcoin Satoshi Vision", which means "Nakamoto's vision". This hard fork version is incompatible with other BCH node clients.

This is a proposal that is very different from the original fork plan. It concerns the future development path of BCH and the vital interests of community members who support the original fork plan. Since then, the BSV version represented by CSW and the BCH fork team represented by Wu Jihan have started a long-term mutual squeeze and exclusion, which was so intense that both sides insulted each other on Twitter and in the community.

Industry insiders told Odaily that, in fact, no matter who wins or loses in the "war of words", computing power is the key to victory. The data will go to the side with greater computing power to form blocks, and eventually become the longest chain. It is reported that both sides even switched the computing power of BTC in the mining pools they controlled. In order to win the fork, each side tried its best.

Outside the BCH community, this fork dispute has also attracted the attention of many people. Within 30 hours, BCH will execute the fork, and people are waiting for the result.

“Although the BCH community is currently experiencing a fierce struggle and even faces some security risks, this is also the charm of the crypto community. In such a crypto community, there is no absolute authority that can control the direction of the roadmap, and community members can freely choose their own development path and try it out. Therefore, this is definitely a meaningful exploration.” On November 14, Yuan Yuming, head of Huobi China, said on his social platform.

CSW Hong Kong Preparation

On November 1, Rody, posing as a Hong Kong miner, picked up the legendary CSW from the airport. The two took a photo together after they met. CSW was wearing a dark blue suit, trousers, and a light blue shirt, looking quite formal. He left Rody with the impression of being "approachable and polite."

"He is not as aloof as Wu Jihan, who doesn't chat with others," said Rody.

The second day of the summit started with a welcome speech titled “Miners’ Choice and Satoshi’s Vision”. Rody felt that it “fits the temperament of a ‘pledge rally’.”

The summit was sponsored by Coingeek and had three guest speakers, namely CSW from nchain, Jimmy Nguyen from nchain and Bob the miner from Coingeek. The three of them jointly represented the leading team supporting the BSV version.

The venue was basically full with 200 people. CSW ran around in the venue, chatting with everyone and basically asking the miners who they chose to support.

Rody revealed that many of the people who went there were celebrities in the cryptocurrency circle, including Liao Xiang and Chong Ge.

The summit ended with the words "The time has come to realize Satoshi Nakamoto's vision", and CSW hopes that the miners who support him will work with him to realize this vision.

After the meeting ended at 6 o'clock, they had dinner together and then went to the hotel. "He also visited my company." Rody said with a little pride.

"Preaching" and "chatting" seem to be one of the tactics used by CSW to lobby the computing power owners. Miner Achao told Odaily Planet Daily that he chose to support CSW, and his daily work recently is basically chatting with everyone in various groups.

Attract miners to buy computing power

Behind CSW’s speeches and chats, purchasing and leasing computing power is the ultimate goal.

Ah Hai, who owns a mine and a mining pool in Girona, told Odaily Planet Daily that both sides are purchasing computing power, and they will sell their own computing power or the purchased computing power to whoever pays higher.

“CSW is smarter. He asked two of his followers to contact us all day long, so Bitmain’s efficiency is not very high.” Ah Hai said: “In fact, people from Bitmain can contact me directly or contact our members. If they go through me, the efficiency will be higher and the radiation will be wider.”

Ah Hai believes that the reason why they did not contact him directly, in addition to their ability, is mainly due to the conflicts between the two parties. "For example, Bitmain is obviously the mortal enemy of many mining farm owners. The mining farm owners in Sichuan said that Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan do not allow Bitmain to come in, and if it comes in, they will drive it away."

This contradiction seems to be the reason why miners who support CSW support CSW. Logically speaking, miners are all profit-seeking, and they will sell their computing power to whoever offers the highest return. However, through the investigation of Odaily Planet Daily, it was found that CSW's miners generally want to resist Bitmain's long-term exploitation of them by supporting CSW.

Li Li, a miner who supports CSW, told Odaily that miners are being robbed of their territory by mining machine vendors and mining pools: "In the past, mining machines were too monopolized, and we had to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to get them to sell them to us. We had to pay the full amount first, without any contract, and just give us the machines. In addition, they would increase the price of the mining machines by 10 times. If they sell them to you, they will have hundreds of more difficult mining machines. Once the difficulty goes up, the computing power of the entire network will be increased, and the mining machines that have just been purchased can hardly mine coins."

"We want to win over Craig Wright to disgust Jihan Wu and make him stop being so powerful in China," said Ah Hai angrily.

"We don't have to support foreigners, but we must resist Wu Jihan." Rody's tone was full of determination.

They don't care about CSW's plan, they just need a proper reason to rebel against Bitmain.

Money-burning war

Computing power is indeed the key to determining the outcome of this war.

There are two main ways to obtain computing power: one is to purchase mining machines and deploy computing power by yourself; the other is to purchase and rent computing power from miners and mining pools. In short, any method is a money-burning game. Whoever has the most money will be the winner.

Earlier, there were media reports that Bitmain had deployed 90,000 mining machines in Xinjiang. Jiang Zhuoer, founder of the Litecoin Mining Pool, revealed to Odaily Planet Daily that Bitmain could fight by simply adjusting the mining pool computing power. Whether the deployment of 90,000 mining machines is true or not, it has nothing to do with the computing power war.

According to Coin.Dance data on November 14, the current total hash rate of the BCH network is around 4800PH/s (1PH/s means 1 trillion hash operations per second). Among them, mining pools supporting BSV, including CoinGeek, SVP, BMG, Mempool, etc., account for 72-80% of the network hash rate, and the hash rate supporting ABC is 16-27%.

According to Liu Changyong's estimate, the cost of mining for miners is close to the value of the new coins they receive. The current daily cost can reach 6 million yuan, and it may rise to 10 million yuan during the computing war. Jiang Zhuoer even believes that this figure can reach 30 million yuan.

"In the end, it may soar to 100 million yuan a day. If calculated based on the lowest consumption, it will consume 210 million yuan a week and 900 million yuan a month," said Jiang Zhuoer.

CSW has been immersed in the joy of temporarily leading in computing power. He has claimed on various occasions that his computing power has an advantage.

Why?

First of all, he has money. CSW once told Odaily Planet Daily that he has a lot of Bitcoin. In addition to his own funds, CSW also said that he has the support of Calvin, the billionaire founder of Coingeek mining pool, and others.

Two BSV chain miners in the same WeChat group as CSW even said that CSW is ready to invest millions of BTC (about 6.4 billion US dollars) this time. This figure is equivalent to the total net worth of Bitmain’s two major shareholders - Zhan Ketuan and Wu Jihan (the Hurun Rich List estimates Zhan Ketuan’s net worth at 4 billion US dollars and Wu Jihan’s at about 2.3 billion US dollars).

Looking at this considerable "pre-deposit", we have no way of judging whether it is true, but many supporters of the ABC version believe that it is hard to believe this budget coming from the "Cong Wai Swallow" (CSW), whose credit is questionable; and having money alone is not enough, "you also need the determination to spend money."

CSW never directly answered how much money he would invest, but he once said: "Until I win, until they give up."

In addition, many miners who hold computing power believe that "Satoshi's Vision" is more in line with their long-term interests, so they are willing to contribute computing power to the BSV chain.

Some developers turn to ABC version

Compared with CSW's high-profile preparations, Bitmain's preparations appear low-key and mysterious.

Investor Liu Yi told Odaily Planet Daily that Bitmain has a lot of reserve computing power, that is, the computing power for mining BTC can be switched at any time. Jiang Zhuoer revealed that Bitmain's computing power is 12 times that of CSW.

“An attack must protect one’s own chain while destroying others’ chains. A successful attack requires 51% of the computing power. At present, the total computing power required for CSW to launch an attack is not large.” Jiang Zhuoer told Odaily Planet Daily.

Liu Yi believes that although CSW has always said that he is very rich, no one knows how rich he is. CSW has always claimed that he will be able to unlock 1 million BTC by January 1, 2020. "If it is true, then he should compete with others at that time. If the computing power war breaks out and CSW unlocks 1 million BTC immediately, my jaw will drop to the ground." He believes that CSW's funds are too far away and he can't hold on for a few days.

The supporters of the ABC version are mainly developers. They mainly believe that CSW only has slogans but no practical plans. ABC has its own clear rodemap.

Bitcoin Jesus Roger Ver was once looking forward to CSW's plan, but when he attended the mining conference in Bangkok, he changed his mind.

According to developer Jiang Jiazhi, both Wu Jihan and CSW attended the meeting. Their respective developer teams introduced the ABC and BSV clients respectively, and everyone was free to discuss and ask questions. When the developers asked nChain why they opposed and what the specific plan was, their answer was: "We have been studying these plans, and these plans are indeed not good, but it is not convenient to tell you the reason."

“Who would support him after hearing such an answer? They even got the basic concept of Bitcoin, base 58, wrong.” Jiang Jiazhi said. It is clear that the BSV version only has a 128M expansion plan, so Jiang Jiazhi thinks it is a waste of time to attend such a meeting and discuss with such people.

"I think 70% of the people here agree with ABC's proposal," Jiang Jiazhi told Odaily Planet Daily.

Conspiracy theories on both sides

Many people believe that this computing power war is actually a battle for discourse power under the banner of ideology. Neither side focused on proving why their technical solutions were superior, but just wanted to attack the other side.

Liu Changyong told Odaily Planet Daily that in fact, the technical contradiction between the two is not very big. Wu Jihan did not object to the 128M and the restoration of the previous operation code. It’s just that the community developers think that it’s too fast to launch now and it needs to be tested. It’s more reasonable to launch it in May next year. In addition, the transaction sorting added by Bitcoin ABC (searching in order to save time and prepare for future capacity increase) is also for expansion. There is no big difference between the two versions of this upgrade. He believes that CSW is just using the upgrade to create divisions, expand personal influence, and form a personality cult. He dominates the community by creating religious beliefs.

In addition, Liu Yi believes that CSW said he wanted to restore Satoshi Nakamoto's vision. If everyone recognizes him as Satoshi Nakamoto, then he has the greatest right to interpret Satoshi Nakamoto's vision. Otherwise, he cannot prove that the route he wants to take is in line with Satoshi Nakamoto's vision.

“If ABC launches a computing power attack on SV, many people will think that it is acting on behalf of heaven and eradicating evil,” he said. “I think he is a paranoid. He may really think that he is Satoshi Nakamoto, so he wants to do things in Satoshi Nakamoto’s way.”

He told Odaliy Planet Daily that CSW wrote in an email: "It will take two years to make BCH untradable." He said that CSW often uses such threats and intimidation, saying that if you don't let me be in power, I will sabotage it.

Liu Changyong is even more suspicious that CSW has a financial backer behind him who is willing to destroy BCH. His known financial backer is the billionaire casino owner Calvin. It is said that nChain also helped him when Craig Wright was about to go bankrupt and signed an agreement. From CSW's letter to Bitcoin Jesus, which stated that he would not hesitate to make BCH unable to trade normally for two years, the development of BCH or Bitcoin is not his starting point. Burning money to destroy BCH makes people doubt the purpose of his supporters. This is not what casino owners or companies with profit-making purposes should do.

BHC fanatic Cindy told the reporter that CSW was originally an Australian businessman. When he was about to go bankrupt, nChain took the initiative to find him and asked him to stand up and pretend to be Satoshi Nakamoto (because he refused to use the private key signature to prove himself).

nChain is a company that specializes in making profits from blockchain patents. It needs to use the name of "Satoshi Nakamoto" to sell to large companies such as Google. Later, because it could not get recognition, it set its sights on BCH. Since CSW did not raise any objections after entering the community, a few weeks after the upgrade in June this year, he suddenly raised objections and said that he wanted to fork. He may have seen the conflicts between some miners and Bitmain, and proposed to give miners more right to express themselves.

Miners who support CSW said that Bitmain’s changes to the Wormhole Layer 2 protocol were selfish. They wanted to gain pricing power and voice, so as to control the rise and fall of the coin price.

Ah Hai told Odaily Planet Daily that in addition to controlling the price of the currency, Bitmain also controls many traditional blockchain-based companies, including chip manufacturers, mining farms, and shopping malls. By linking the stock market with the price of the currency, when the market share affects his profit structure, he can manipulate TSMC and Samsung to short sell them, making them unable to survive.

In addition, they think CSW has a better chance of winning because CSW is spending his own money, while Wu Jihan is spending the investors’ money. Once the investors’ money is spent, it’s gone, but Wu Jihan will pay close attention to his own money. At the same time, Bitmain’s industrial layout is both an advantage and a constraint.

When the 15th comes

At present, Bitmain has been relatively low-key. If the reserved computing power, financial resources and the recognition of most developers are their core weapons, then CSW’s core weapon is mainly the propaganda advantage of the slogan "Satoshi Vision" and the miners’ pent-up resistance to Bitmain over the years.

This war, which started with a technological route, has nothing to do with technology anymore. It is more like a fight between two willful giants.

For miners, not taking sides is the safest strategy, especially on November 15th. Once you choose to mine a chain, there is a risk of zeroing out. Therefore, many people choose to mine BTC on this day. More people are willing to rent out their computing power in advance. But there are also gamblers who believe that if no one mines BCH on this day, the computing power will decrease, and if the bet wins, the profit will be doubled.

Some people think this is a good thing for the community, and it is a proof of decentralization. Any member can raise objections and launch computing attacks as long as his computing power is large enough, and it can also increase attention for the industry. Others think this will confuse BCH users and weaken brand recognition.

We can also see some contradictions in the mining machine market. For example, Bitmain’s long-term monopoly has caused dissatisfaction among miners. They hope that through this war they can check and balance Bitmain and improve the status of miners.

“I hope everyone will fight harder, and finally the funds from outside will flow into our mining circle, and the miners will benefit.” Ah Hai said. After all, the money will eventually flow into the wallets of miners and mining pools through computing power.

We, the spectators, can only wait quietly for the early morning of the 16th.