That afternoon, looking up from the gaps in the skyscrapers in Hong Kong, the sky was a fiery red. Rody picked up his mobile phone to take a picture of this scene, and then sent a Moments, "It's very Halloween (Halloween)." It was Halloween that day.
Afterwards, he received "Australian Satoshi Nakamoto" Craig Steven Wright (hereinafter referred to as CSW) in a blue suit from Hong Kong Airport.
Previously, the CSW team sent invitations to miners around the world, intending to hold a summit entitled "Bitcoin BCH Miners' Choice" in Hong Kong on November 2, where CSW tried to win over the computing power in the hands of miners.
At 0:40 am on November 16th, Beijing time, BCH will implement a hard fork, and the BCH fork battle between Wu Jihan and CSW will finally usher in a result.
Things need to go back to earlier.
On August 1, 2017, the original Bitcoin core development team such as Bitcoin-ABC, ViaBTC, and BU development team performed a hard fork on Bitcoin, and BCH was born. In fact, this fork is led by Wu Jihan, and it is called the ABC version. In May of this year, BCH completed the first hard fork. At that time, the development teams reached a consensus during the fork. No new fork coins were generated, and the block size was increased from 8M to 32M.
According to the BCH development roadmap, the BCH community has made a hard fork of BCH every 6 months since then. The original ABC team plan, the fork in November will add two lines of opcodes to support smart contracts on the original basis, so that BCH has more room for exploration and more flexibility for developers. At the same time, you can also connect to the IBC database, change the data storage method, and prepare for sharding.
But in August, nChain led by CSW suddenly announced that they would create a BSV node client, making BCH significantly closer to the original Bitcoin protocol. The full English name of BSV is "Bitcoin Satoshi Vision", which means "Nakamoto Vision". This hard fork version is not compatible with other BCH node clients.
This is a proposal that is very different from the original fork plan. It is related to the future development 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 began a long period of running and repelling each other, during which the two sides insulted each other on Twitter and in the community.
Industry insiders told Odaily that, in fact, regardless of who wins the "war of scolding", computing power is the key to the outcome of this war. Whichever side has the most computing power, the data will go to whichever side to form a block, and eventually become the longest chain. It is reported that the two parties even switched the computing power of BTC in the mining pools they controlled, and each tried their best to win the fork.
Outside the BCH community, this fork battle has also attracted the attention of many people. Within 30 hours, BCH will execute the fork, and people are waiting for the result.
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CSW Hong Kong prepares for war
On November 1, Rody received the legendary CSW from the airport as a miner in Hong Kong. After the two met, they took a photo together. CSW was wearing a dark blue suit trousers and a light blue shirt, which was quite formal. He struck Rody as "approachable and polite".
"He's not as cold as Wu Jihan, who doesn't chat with other people," Rody said.
The second day of the summit started with the welcome speech of "miners' choice and Satoshi Nakamoto's vision". Rody felt that "it fits the temperament of the 'swearing-in meeting'."
The summit was sponsored by Coingeek, and there were three speakers, CSW from nChain, Jimmy Nguyen from nChain, and miner Bob from Coingeek. Together, the three represent the dominant team supporting the BSV version.
The venue with 200 people was basically full. CSW ran around in the venue, chatting with everyone, and basically asked the miners who they chose to support.
Rody revealed that many people who went there were celebrities in the currency circle, and Liao Xiang and Brother Chong were also there.
The summit ended with “The time has come to realize Satoshi Nakamoto’s vision”, and CSW hoped that the miners who supported him would join him in realizing 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.
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Win over miners to buy computing power
Behind the CSW presentations and chats, buying and leasing computing power is the ultimate goal.
Ah Hai, who owns a mine and a mining pool in Jirunia, told Odaily that both sides are purchasing computing power, and whoever pays more will sell their computing power or the computing power they purchased.
"CSW is smarter. He finds two younger brothers to contact us all day long. Bitmain's efficiency is not very high." Ahai said: "Actually, people from Bitmain can contact me directly or contact our members. Through me, the efficiency will be higher and the radiation will be wider."
Ah Hai believed that the reason why they didn't contact him directly was mainly due to the conflict between the two parties besides ability. "For example, Bitmain is obviously the deadly enemy of many mine owners. The mine owners in Sichuan said that Yunguichuan does not allow Bitmain to come in, and they will drive it away."
And this contradiction seems to be the reason why miners who support CSW support CSW. It stands to reason that miners are all profit-seeking, and whoever gives higher income will sell their computing power to them. However, through Odaily's investigation, it is found that CSW miners generally want to support CSW to resist Bitmain's long-standing squeeze on them.
Li Li, a miner who supports CSW, told Odaily that miners were cut off by mining machine merchants and mining pools very badly: "In the past, mining machines were too monopolistic, and we needed to spend hundreds of millions to sell them to us. Pay the full amount first, and contract None, just give us the machine. In addition, he increases the price of the mining machine by 10 times and sells it to you. If you sell it to you, there will be hundreds of more difficult mining machines. Once the difficulty increases, the computing power of the entire network will increase. It will be increased, and the mining machine that has just been bought can hardly mine coins.”
"We want to win Cong Ao Bencong to disgust Wu Jihan, so that he will not be too awesome in China." Ah Hai said angrily.
"We don't have to support foreigners, but we must resist Wu Jihan." Rody's tone was full of determination.
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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 arrange computing power yourself; the other is to purchase and lease computing power from miners and mining pools. In short, any method is a money-burning game. Whoever has the most money will be able to persist until the end and become the ultimate winner.
According to previous media reports, Bitmain has deployed 90,000 mining machines in Xinjiang. Jiang Zhuoer, the founder of Leibit Mining Pool, revealed to Odaily that Bitmain can directly adjust the computing power of the mining pool to fight. Whether it is real or not, the deployment of 90,000 mining machines has nothing to do with the computing power war.
According to data from Coin.Dance on November 14th, the overall computing power of the current BCH network is around 4800PH/s (1PH/s means 1 trillion hash operations per second). Among them, the mining pools that support BSV, including CoinGeek, SVP, BMG, Mempool, etc., account for 72-80% of the network hash value, and the computing power supporting ABC is 16-27%.
According to Liu Changyong's estimation, the cost of mining for miners is close to the value of the new coins they get. The current daily cost can reach 6 million yuan, and it may rise to 10 million yuan during the computing power war. Jiang Zhuoer even believes that this figure can reach 30 million yuan.
"In the end, it may soar to 100 million yuan per day. If calculated according to the minimum consumption, it will consume 210 million yuan a week and 900 million yuan a month." Jiang Zhuoer said.
CSW has been immersed in the joy of temporarily leading the computing power. He claimed on various occasions that his computing power has an advantage.
Why?
The first is to have money. CSW once told Odaily that he has a lot of bitcoins. In addition to its own funds, CSW claims that it also has the support of the founder of the Coingeek mining pool and billionaire Calvin.
Two BSV chain miners in the same WeChat group as CSW even said that CSW is going to invest millions of BTC (approximately 6.4 billion U.S. dollars) this time, which is equivalent to the two major shareholders of Bitmain — Ketuan Zhan and The sum of Jihan's net worth (the Hurun Rich List estimates Ketuan Zhan's net worth at 4 billion US dollars, and Wu Jihan's is about 2.3 billion US dollars).
Looking at this huge "advance deposit", we have no way of judging whether it is true, but many supporters of the ABC version believe that this budget comes from the dubious "Mouth Cannon Cong" (CSW). It's hard to believe; and it's not enough just to have money, "you also need to have the determination to burn money."
CSW did not directly answer how much he would invest, but he once said: "Until I win, until they give up."
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Some developers turned to the ABC version
Compared with CSW's high-profile preparations, Bitmain's preparations are low-key and mysterious.
Investor Liu Yi told Odaily that Bitmain has a lot of reserve computing power, that is, the computing power for mining BTC can be cut at any time. Jiang Zhuoer revealed that the computing power of Bitmain is 12 times that of CSW.
"Attacks must protect one's own chain while destroying others' chains. A successful attack requires 51% computing power. At present, the total computing power required for CSW launch is not large." Jiang Zhuoer told Odaily.
Liu Yi believes that although CSW has always said that he is rich, no one knows how rich he is. CSW has been claiming that by January 1, 2020, it will be able to unlock 1 million BTC. "If it is true, then he should PK with others at that time. If the computing power war starts and CSW immediately unlocks 1 million BTC, then my jaw will drop to the ground." He believes that CSW's funds are too far apart to last much sky.
Supporters of the ABC version are mainly developers. They mainly believe that CSW has only slogans and no practical plans. And ABC has its own explicit rodemap.
Bitcoin Jesus Roger Ver was looking forward to CSW's proposal, but when he finished attending the mining conference in Bangkok, he turned his back.
According to the description of the developer Jiang Jiazhi, Wu Jihan and CSW both participated in this meeting. The respective developer teams introduced the clients of ABC and BSV respectively, and everyone can discuss and ask questions freely. When the developers asked nChain why they objected and what the specific plan was, their answer was: "We have been studying these plans, and they are indeed bad, but it is not convenient to tell you why."
"Who will support him when you hear such an answer? They even mispronounced the basic concept of Bitcoin, base 58." Jiang Jiazhi said. It is clear that the BSV version only has 128M capacity expansion, so Jiang Jiazhi feels that attending such meetings and discussing with such people is a waste of time.
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conspiracy theory on both sides
More people think that this computing power war is actually a battle for the right to speak under the banner of ideas. The two sides also did not focus on proving why their own technical solutions are better, they just want to attack the other side.
Liu Changyong told Odaily that in fact, the technical conflict between the two is not very big, and Wu Jihan did not object to 128M and the restoration of the previous operation code. It’s just that the community developers think that it’s too fast to go online now and needs to be tested. It’s more reasonable to go online in May next year. Moreover, the transaction sorting added by Bitcoin ABC (searching in sequence saves time and prepares for future capacity increase) is also for capacity expansion. There is no major difference between the two versions of this upgrade. He believes that CSW is only using the upgrade to create divisions, expand personal influence, and form a personality cult. Dominate the community by creating religious beliefs.
In addition, Liu Yi believes that CSW said that it wants to restore the vision of Satoshi Nakamoto. If everyone admits that he is Satoshi Nakamoto, then he has the greatest right to interpret the vision of Satoshi Nakamoto. Otherwise, he will not be able to prove that the route he wants to take is in line with Satoshi Nakamoto's vision.
"If ABC attacks SV with computing power, many people will think that it is doing justice for the heavens and eradicating evildoers." He said, "I think he is a delusional fanatic. He may really think he is Satoshi Nakamoto, so he wants to press Zhong Satoshi's way of doing things."
He told Odaliy that CSW wrote in an email: "It will take 2 years to make BCH untradable." He said that CSW often uses this method of threats and intimidation. If you don't let me be in power, I will destroy it.
Liu Changyong is even more skeptical that there is a financial support behind CSW, and he does not hesitate to overthrow BCH. His known financial backer is casino owner billionaire Calvin. It is said that nChain also helped Satoshi Aoben when he was about to go bankrupt and signed an agreement. Judging from CSW's letter to Bitcoin Jesus claiming that he would not hesitate to make BCH unable to trade normally for two years, BCH or the development of Bitcoin is not his starting point. Burning money to destroy BCH makes people doubt the purpose of his supporters. Not what a casino owner or a for-profit corporation should do.
Cindy, a BHC enthusiast, told reporters that CSW was originally a businessman in Australia. 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 has been refusing to use the private key signature to prove himself).
And nChain is a company that specializes in profiting from blockchain patents, and needs to use the name of "Satoshi Nakamoto" to sell to large companies such as Google. Later, because it was not recognized, it focused on BCH again. Because CSW did not raise any objections after entering the community, after a few weeks of upgrading in June this year, he suddenly raised objections, saying that he would fork. He may have seen conflicts between some miners and Bitmain, and proposed to give miners more expressive rights.
Miners who support CSW said that Bitmain's changes to the Wormhole Layer 2 protocol are selfish. They want to gain pricing power and voice, so as to control the rise and fall of currency prices.
Ah Hai told Odaily that in addition to Bitmain’s ability to control currency prices, there are many traditional blockchain-based enterprises, including chip manufacturers, mines and shopping malls. By linking the stock market and currency prices, when the market share affects his profit structure, he can short TSMC and Samsung by manipulating them, so that they can't get along.
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text
At present, Bitmain’s performance is relatively low-key. If reserve computing power, financial resources and the approval of most developers are their core weapons, then the core weapon of CSW is mainly based on the slogan of "Satoshi Nakamoto Vision" The advantages of publicity, and the resistance of miners to the backlog of Bitmain over the years.
This war that started with a technical route has nothing to do with technology, and is more like a fight between two wayward giants.
For miners, not standing in line is the safest strategy, especially on November 15th, once they choose to mine a chain, there is a risk of clearing. Therefore, many people choose to mine BTC on this day. More people are willing to rent out their computing power in advance. But some gamblers believe that if no one mines BCH on this day, then the computing power will drop, and if the bet wins, the income will be doubled.
For this community, some people think this is good, and it is a kind of proof of decentralization. Any member can raise objections and launch computing power attacks, as long as his computing power is large enough, it can also increase the industry’s attention. Others believe that this will confuse BCH users and weaken brand recognition.
Among them, we can also see some contradictions in the mining machine market. For example, the long-term monopoly position of Bitmain has caused dissatisfaction among miners. They hope that through this war, Bitmain can be checked and balanced, and the status of miners can be improved.
"I hope everyone will fight harder. In the end, the funds from outside will flow to our mining circle, and it will benefit the miners." Ah Hai said. After all, the final flow of those money is through computing power into the wallets of miners and mining pools.
We people who eat melons can only wait quietly for the arrival of the early morning of the 16th.
