TL;DR: In a dramatic turn of events, Bitcoin.com, a signatory to the recently announced Infrastructure Funding Plan for Bitcoin Cash (IFP), revealed it was dropping its support for the IFP in order to avert a possible network split. This comes after anonymous participants claimed to have formed a miner group in opposition to the proposal’s temporary 12.5% redirection of the BCH block reward, threatening “to create our own chain after the fork.”

BCH Mining Pool Bitcoin.com Drops Support for 12.5% Developer Fund Proposal

“As it stands now, Bitcoin.com will not go through with supporting any plan unless there is more agreement in the ecosystem such that the risk of a chain split is negligible,” the influential BCH mining pool revealed suddenly. “We think it is clear that the existing proposal does not have enough support, and we will be working to come up with a plan that is profitable for all the relevant parties and which preserves the fundamental economics of Bitcoin Cash.”

Indeed, a growing chorus of critics from within the peer-to-peer electronic cash community united in opposition to the IFP, put forward just days ago by prominent mining pool BTC.TOP and its founder, Jiang Zhuoer. It proposed a soft fork to orphan blocks of miners who chose to not accept a temporary, six month 12.5% redirection of the Bitcoin Cash coinbase block reward. Some $6,000,000 was projected to be raised by the IFP and distributed to developers in an as-yet-detailed arrangement through a Hong Kong-based corporation.

In addition to Zhuoer, the IFP listed Jihan Wu of Bitmain, Haipo Yang of ViaBTC, and Roger Ver of Bitcoin.com as supporters. Bitcoin.com previously affirmed its support, even attempting to distinguish the block reward redirection as a service fee rather than a tax as the IFP’s skeptics charged. Between that affirmation and the subsequent dropping of support, a mysterious group of anonymous miners from North America and Europe issued an ultimatum to signatories.

Anonymous Opposition Miners: We are Therefore Standing Down

“Assuming the proposal is not withdrawn,” the anonymous miner group concluded, “or modified to be acceptable, we will continue to mine up to the hard fork, which will create our own chain after the fork due to the consensus rule change introduced by the signatories. We definitely plan to obtain more hashrate than the signatories can muster. The market will need to decide in the days following the fork,” asking IFP backers “see the light and remove their ‘non-debate’ clause.”

Presumably that, along with a scathing rebuke from a BCH node implementation development team, Bitcoin Unlimited and its Chief Scientist Peter Rizun, calling the IFP “sickening” and “indistinguishable from a scam,” compelled one of the most recognizable brands in the cryptocurrency ecosystem to quickly reconsider.

“We participated in this process,” Bitcoin.com explained in its backing away from the IFP, “because we know that developer funding is an important issue to solve and that a proper funding mechanism will help Bitcoin Cash continue to grow as fast, reliable cash for the world.” The company further stressed it “will not risk a chain split or a change to the underlying economics. In order to do this, any proposal will need to have as many people of economic weight on-board as possible, including businesses, exchanges, miners, and Bitcoin Cash implementations. We’re excited to continue the discussions.”

Shortly after, the anonymous opposition mining group issued its own statement. “We trust Bitcoin.com are going to be able to convince the rest of the signatories to severely amend the IFP. We are therefore standing down and will not start our competing pool for the time being and will continue to support the BCH pools instead,” the group insisted.

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