[Messari Research Begrudgingly Listing BSV

This was originally sent to subscribers of Messari's Unqualified Opinions. Click here to become a subscriber and access all of our historical content.

TBI - December 12, 2018

Out of the top ten assets by market cap (and top 15 by trading volume), three are now Bitcoin forks following last month’s split within the Bitcoin Cash community.

Bitcoin has actually forked at least 72 times to date. Maybe more. In fact, the truenumber of Bitcoin forks may be unknowable thanks to “point-and-click” websites that allow people to create their own forks.

The one split that has attracted more attention than any other crypto fork was, of course, last year’s Bitcoin Cash (BCH) split. That event was the final move in a years-in-the-making divorce between bitcoin’s rival tribes. It led to the ostracization of many of bitcoin’s brightest contributors, and could still well lead to the downfall of the industry’s largest miner, Bitmain.

It was pretty high stakes stuff , but the resolution was legitimate. We learned warring tribes could peacefully separate in crypto, even if that caused short-term disruptions.

But we also should have learned how traumatic they are.

You’d have thought that after last year’s saga, hard forks would become a last resort sort of “nuclear” exit option. Instead they quickly became get-rich-quick opportunities or games played by rich dudes with big egos.

The Bitcoin Cash fork, and the arrival of and competition between Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV) and Bitcoin ABC (ABC) somewhat trivializes chain forks. The remnants of BCH now look a heckuva lot more like their Diamond, Pizza, and World counterparts than legitimate projects with strong philosophical alignment.

(Click here to use this dashboard)

And that’s too bad. Understanding the nature, history, and purpose of forks (beyond just Bitcoin’s) is a crucial and probably under-appreciated part of investing in crypto.

If you’re even slightly curious to look beyond the cacophony of drama drowning Bitcoin Satoshi Vision and Bitcoin ABC, visit this page.

You’ll discover explainers on the technical details of BCH and its forks, tools for storing or claiming forked coins, analysis of BCH’s social and historical context, and more. Our resource pages are not (yet) live informational feeds like our home page, but they will be.