Bitcoin Global News (BGN)
April 22, 2019 -- ADVFN Crypto NewsWire -- Bitcoin SV is not the
true Bitcoin, if the true Bitcoin we are referring to is the one
that sprung forth from the mind of Satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoin Cash
and all of the other forks also fall short in this respect. Despite
the fact that this is the case if Nakamoto’s whitepaper is
understood to be the correct definition of Bitcoin, numerous
communities still exist that believe the opposite is
true.
With this in mind, Bitcoin SV has
recently thrust itself further into the spotlight due to the
continued assurances of Craig Wright, its’ key supporter, that he
is Satoshi. What makes matters more controversial in this respect
is that one of the Bitcoin community members who spoke out against
Wright’s comments was recently threatened by the SV
community.
In response to this threat and the
powerful voices of the Bitcoin community in support of the member
in question, crypto exchange juggernauts like Binance and Kraken
decided to de-list Bitcoin SV completely.
Though both of these
companies(Binance in particular) made it clear that their decision
was based on a comprehensive review process of the asset, an outcry
has sprung up that claims the de-listing represents censorship that
it antithetical to the values that the blockchain industry
espouses.
Overall, this opposition seems to
mostly come from the Bitcoin SV community itself, which should not
be surprising since these de-listings will significantly threaten
SV’s liquidity and value. Calvin Ayre, who together with Craig
Wright, leads the SV project has even go so far as to claim that an
SV-based exchange may save SV.
One of the major issues with this
proposal is that this new exchange was financed by one of OkEx’s
advisors, which is basically the only major exchange to still
provide SV with a large level of trading volume.
Therefore, before the SV community
cries censorship, they should arguably investigate themselves for
centralization related to the groups that tout SV as the true
Bitcoin. On the other hand, none of this proves that the continued
de-listing of SV is not a problem.
As Michael Casey mentions in his
article on the subject today, if crypto exchanges have this much
power to kill the liquidity and as a result, the overall value of a
project, then we are not doing something right. To understand this
can easily be argued to be true, consider the power of social media
platforms.
What happens when both Twitter and
Facebook cut off a well-known personality? In short, he or she has
just lost access to two of the most globally popular platforms for
sharing any sort of news. Following this, these personalities or
businesses lose large revenue streams and protests begin about
undue censorship related to the right to freedom of
speech.
How does this relate to SV’s
de-listing, you might ask? It’s actually quite simple. If exchanges
can de-list any project at any time, just imagine how much power
they have to influence the value of any blockchain project. Casey
goes on to mention that without another “business use case,” crypto
and blockchain projects might begin to face much more serious
issues in the near future.
If we take certain quotes from
industry proponents and critics into account as Casey does, then
this possibility is much easier to understand. In summary, crypto
exchanges provide the blockchain industry’s only use case that has
scaled to large numbers of users. Simultaneously, they do not
really support individual blockchains by making any sort of
meaningful connection to them.
Considering this, it is easy to see
as well why individual crypto projects are struggling to scale.
Most users are just using cryptocurrencies to trade and have not
yet been properly incentivized to do anything else with them. Since
these exchanges are walled off from the individual crypto
ecosystems while also offering the only fiat gateways, it’s hard to
see how any project can scale without them.
Why should anyone use crypto for
anything else when they can theoretically make large sums of money
by trading it on exchanges? What makes all of this worse is that
even with certain utility tokens, users are required to begin by
purchasing them on exchanges.
In the end, if we circle back to
the de-listing of SV, the problem comes down to not an issue of
neutrality as Casey suggests, but an issue of not having another
recourse. Yes the SV leaders were outspoken to the point of
harassment and alleged fraud, but does that speak to the project
itself? Is a crypto project not decentralized from any single
group? Until crypto has another killer use case that provides it
with a high level of liquidity outside or exchanges or until the
exchange model is made more decentralized, then we will have to
allow them to pick and choose what projects will succeed. They are,
with the exception of decentralized exchanges, private businesses
after all.
By: BGN Editorial Staff