I didn't want my first post after introducing myself on Steemit to be quite so controversial. However, today we have seen a massive downward movement of the price on Bitcoin and many are saying that it's a 'correction' or the 'Bitcoin bubble finally breaking'.

You can show support to my original article on Quora here: Why is bitcoin going down? Will it come up again soon?

To anyone that is concerned over Bitcoin’s price going down, I urge calm and research. This is what has caused the price of Bitcoin to go down to the 15000$ range. And it’s very serious:

For the last 9 hours or more, Coinbase / Gdax have been pegging the price of Bitcoin to Bitcoin Cash at a rate of 0.2 BTC

$3000 BCH : $15,000 BTC

update 5pm: $3100 BCH : $15,500 BTC

update 5:30pm: $3200 BCH : $15,900 BTC

update 6:30pm: $3100 BCH : $15,500 BTC

One of the largest exchanges in the world is currently manipulating the market, by pegging Bitcoin’s value to another currency and, therefore, preventing the two markets from resuming their natural growth.

If this is intentional, then it is very serious and questions the ethics and motivations of both Coinbase / GDAX and Bitcoin Cash. No official statement has been released as of yet, but the damage has already been done.

Anyone with a conscience would boycott Bitcoin Cash and Coinbase now.

EDIT: here is a discussion on Reddit with both for and against arguments to whether the pegging on Coinbase affected the price of Bitcoin yesterday here and here

Research the background and activities of Roger Ver, the man pushing Bitcoin Cash together with Jihan Wu, the co-founder of the company Bitmain. Bitmain is :

You will discover many interesting links and realise the dangerous power struggle between Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash.

Especially the close ties between Roger Ver and Bitmain, the mining company - which now only accepts Bitcoin Cash as payment for their products. A clever push, considering how much influence they already hold in the cyrpto-verse.

Bitcoin Cash is a hard fork of Bitcoin, supported largely by Chinese miners and as a result:

This centralisation gives them a lot of power over the blockchain’s behaviour. In addition to that, they have control over a lot of wealth from years of Bitcoin mining with which they are now serving their own agenda.

ANTBLEED scandal

Not only that, Bitmain has openly admitted to using potentially harmful code in their mining equipment that makes miners vulnerable to having their machines turned off by Bitmain. The company tried to sell it as an improvement. But it can easily be used to target certain customers and groups for financial gains (see the article for details).

This happened in April, a long time ago for the internet to remember and bring to the attention of the thousands of new investors since November who don’t know this.

ASICBOOST scandal

If that wasn’t enough, Bitmain also openly admitted to using AsicBoost in their miners. AsicBoost gives an unfair advantage to miners that use it and Bitmain and its mining pools have rejected the Segregated Witness soft fork (SegWit), because it is prevents the covert use of AsicBoost technology embedded in their chips.

The company had been using the technology secretly and the official statement from Bitmain only came, after their use of AcicBoost was discovered.

Bitcoin Cash is not Bitcoin

Roger Ver has now been on CNBC, where where he claimed that Bitcoin Cash is the real Bitcoin. Nowhere did they indicate during the interview the clear bias Roger Ver has.

During the same interview, he also told millions of Americans that Bitcoin holders should send their BTC to exchanges to be ready for the Bitcoin bubble bursting. Today, the price of Bitcoin Cash was pegged to Bitcoin on Coinbase, making the price go down. Interesting, right? What a self-fulfilling prophecy. And many shaky hands will likely follow, helping the downward trend.

Even if it were true that Bitcoin Cash offers some advantages over Bitcoin, the shady activities of its backers is a serious cause of alarm and a threat to the sustainability of cryptocurrencies and what they stand for.

Forbes March 21:

“certain technical upgrades, including a block size increase, require what’s called a hard fork, which runs the risk of creating two versions of bitcoin if not done with the full support of the community. Many consider this type of hostile hard fork a potential nuclear option in bitcoin — one that could destroy, or at least damage, the industry that, until last Thursday, had a $20 billion market cap”

Is This Massive Power Struggle About To Blow Up Bitcoin?

Max Kasier on RT November 18:

“Bitcoin cash is an alt-coin that has its fans just like many alt-coins. I don't think anyone who uses bitcoin's name and applies it to an alt-coin like bitcoin cash does is adhering to acceptable business practices. In other words, bitcoin's brand is being stolen by a competitor that calls itself bitcoin cash and this is outright fraud in my opinion, just like it's fraudulent to use Coca-Cola and Nike's name to sell soft drinks or shoes,” said Max Keiser

'Bitcoin is a gift from God to help humanity sort out mess it has made with its money' – Max Keiser

In conclusion: please research

the creation story of Bitcoin Cash (Bitcoin ABC/Bitcoin Unlimited)

the relationship between Roger Ver and Jihan Wu

and the background of Bitmain, the mining company

And make an ethical decision about supporting them

I gave many links to get you started with.

The technological drawbacks of Bitcoin / Bitcoin Cash are out of the scope of this article. But if the technological drawbacks are your concern, then there are dozens of cryptocurrency projects without such ethical stains out there that deserve your support.

To anyone critical of this post, I want to say this: the point of Steemit and Quora is to offer quality content, so I'm not going to repeat everyone else - in all likelihood, you already heard all of the mainstream arguments like corrections, bubbles, Christmas, panic sellers, etcetera. In this post, I am offering balance to the views on what's going on, especially since the majority of people don't have time to closely follow the massive flow of information on the internet. The internet has a memory that is way too short anyway. So let's revisit and research the issues from our recent past.

"Those who do not remember the past, are condemned to repeat it"

George Santayana

If you like my work and appreciate the effort I put into writing my articles, you can upvote or send me a "token" of your appreciation :

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