TL;DR: A few key BCH developers met in person to discuss the status of Bitcoin Cash as a project, good and problematic, what is needed to improve, and where it is headed. Josh Ellithorpe of Coinbase, Gabriel Cardona from Bitcoin.com, Bitmain’s Nishant Sharma, and Amaury Séchet of Bitcoin ABC gathered for a rare, in-person congress during the Bitcoin Cash City Conference in Australia to talk bad actors, adoption, applications, and mining.

BCH Developers Discuss Bad Actors, Adoption, Apps, and Mining

Documentarian Calvin Tran flew to the other side of the world from his home base in the United States to Townsville, Australia. The occasion prompting him Down Under was twofold: build content to feed his Bitcoin World Tour upcoming film and grab exclusives of the historic gathering for CoinSpice.

Tran’s resulting product is slightly more than 45 minutes of candid, hopeful, and frank discussion by Bitcoin Cash ecosystem notables. Each man plays a key role at various points in BCH development, and for enthusiasts it’s a real chance to get a peek inside where their respective heads are as of 5 September 2019.

Earlier that morning, Séchet gave a rousing presentation, a near call-to-arms. The afterglow was important to show, and the Frenchman heaped praise to Tran on conference organizers, insisting a personal goal was to not use fiat during the remainder his stay. He said it was refreshing to be at a crypto setting with less noise and more signal.

Culling Bad Actors

Cardona agreed, marveling at the amount of adoption within the local city of Townsville. Ellithorpe continued with anecdotes about how merchants were coping with BCH as an economic unit, not just cashing-out necessarily but holding small amounts to trade among themselves. In fact, as Séchet and Sharma (the lone non-dev) focused on fundamentals and principles of cryptocurrency as cash, as a currency, Ellithorpe and Cardona were quick to also insist SLP tokenization on BCH was instituted in such a way as to not interfere with or overshadow either.

Indeed, the BCH SLP token ecosystem is booming, and Ellithorpe added how ideas like dividends, rewarding loyalty points or further equity, could really help Bitcoin Cash grow in ways not seen on other cryptocurrencies. Séchet seemed to agree, continuing to focus upon his earlier talk’s main theme, culture.

The Bitcoin Cash community must get better at recognizing bad actors, and quickly, he said. Cardona nodded, explaining a real tension between that idea is BCH’s insistence on opening up to everyone, to the entire world. Séchet agreed, warning how giving the initial benefit of any doubt to those wanting to work on and within the Bitcoin Cash ecosystem should not be extended indefinitely when they signal in obviously awful ways.

A lot of good people and a lot of bad people will enter the BCH community, Séchet reminded, but bad people will usually not admit they are bad. They must be shown the door, he stressed. And while it’s uncomfortable and unnerving, what doing so ultimately does is signal to good people BCH is serious and worth considering. To both Cardona’s and Séchet’s points, Ellithorpe concurred, synthesizing them as sides of a very important strategy going forward: there is plenty of work that needs to be done, work everyone agrees upon; where disagreement happens, it’s important to be open while also making sure such conversations are productive.

DISCLOSURE: The author holds cryptocurrency as part of his financial portfolio, including BCH.

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