INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
By Olga KharifThe battle for the control of Bitcoin Cash is getting expensive.
The fourth-largest cryptocurrency began attracting mainstream
attention this week when two competing software-development teams failed to agree on how to best update the code and ended up splitting the
The fight was cited Wednesday for contributing to the biggest drop in eight months for Bitcoin, which Bitcoin Cash had split off from last
year.
Both factions have been ramping up the amount of computing power they own to support their software version to win a race called
Nakamoto Consensus, under which whoever has the most computing support wins
The groups, known as ABC and SV, are losing about $700,000 a day on expenses like electricity to run so-called mining rigs that compete to
process transactions, according to BitMex Research
Bitcoin core developer.
Each has pledged to keep going to win the so-called Hash War, where "hash" denotes computing power dedicated to the
$100 billion company, which you could effect by directing your resources," said Lex Sokolin, global director of fintech strategy at
Autonomous Research in London
"There is prestige, reputation and power that comes with being the main party responsible for deciding the vision and feature set of the
future of money."
The winner will be able to make tweaks in the software to its benefit, such as figuring out how to mine coins more
Other pluses include being able to attract better developers, and more miners to join its pool
hash rate in one way or another," said Travis Kling, founder of the hedge fund Ikigai
The coins, Bitcoin Cash ABC and Bitcoin Cash SV, together add up to significantly less than what Bitcoin Cash was worth before the fork,
according to Poloniex exchange data
When Bitcoin Cash split off from Bitcoin in August 2017, investors actually saw the prices of the two coins appreciate.
The ABC faction is
headed by Chinese crypto mining powerhouse Bitmain and investor Roger Ver, who is referred to as Bitcoin Jesus for his early advocacy of the
seen Bitcoin Cash lose $2.75 billion in market value in the last week.
