News Vitalik Buterin Comments on Bitcoin vs Bitcoin Cash Debate

The 24 year old developer live-tweeted about a debate between Samson Mow and Roger Ver on Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash. He also shared some of his own thoughts on BTC vs BCH, scaling, and the development of the two networks.

Live-Tweeting the Debate

Currently, the Deconomy conference is happening in South Korea, hosting speakers such as Vitalik Buterin, CEO of Bitcoin.com Roger Ver, Craig S Wright, CSO of BlockStream Samson Mow, and author of the Lightning Network whitepaper Joseph Poon. The stage welcomed Jeff Paik, Roger Ver, and Samson Mow, the latter two being very prominent and polarizing figures in the cryptocurrency space. They talked about Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash, centering on the age-old “on-chain vs off-chain” debate. Vitalik was live-tweeting for a portion of the event, including Craig S Wright’s talk and the debate between Roger and Samson

For those unaware, Bitcoin Cash is a fork of Bitcoin that was launched in August of last year after a long-standing disagreement in the community about how to scale the biggest digital currency. Whereas Bitcoin looks to increase transaction throughput via innovative solutions such as SegWit and Lightning Network and utilizing “off-chain” technologies, Bitcoin Cash looks to increase capacity at the base layer, or “on-chain”, of the protocol via periodic blocksize increases. Both avenues of scaling have their pros and cons, but having the two networks progress differently will let us see how different protocols work as they both gain adoption.

Mow vs Ver

Roger Ver starts off by saying “just continuing the existing approach of increasing block sizes is the safe path,” as opposed to letting fees skyrocket to unusable levels. Vitalik agreed with that statement but went on to say that “Bitcoin core devs’ work in making the node more efficient over time so it can handle and efficiently process larger and larger blocks is indeed admirable.”

Vitalik corrected a misconception regarding the blocksize with SegWit. Samson iterated that blocks can be up to 4MB in size thanks to SegWit. While true, actual practical use of SegWit results in 1.3-2.4 MB blocks depending on SegWit adoption.

42. "Now blocks can be up to 4 MB in block weight" – true in theory, but 1.3-2.4 MB in practice depending on extent and type of segwit adoption. — Vitalik "Not giving away ETH" Buterin (@VitalikButerin) April 3, 2018

Vitalik also commented on Samson’s comparison of blocksize limit to a restaurant. If it’s full, you’ll just have to wait. Vitalik offers his opinion, saying that “This I think is definitely a bad argument; I actually go to restaurants often and usually when I come to one and it’s full, I go to a different restaurant.”

46. Samson: "I don't think block size limits impede usage. If you go to a restaurant and it's full, you wait" This I think is definitely a bad argument; I actually go to restaurants often and usually when I come to one and it's full, I go to a different restaurant. — Vitalik "Not giving away ETH" Buterin (@VitalikButerin) April 3, 2018

Samson and Roger debated a “chicken and the egg”-esque issue on sound money vs usage. Samson said the development of sound money is more important than transaction and usage in the long run, to which Roger replied that transactions and usage is what makes something a sound money.

48. Samson: I think sound money is more important than transactions/usage

Roger: I think transactions/usage is what *makes* something sound money I'm also with Roger here. — Vitalik "Not giving away ETH" Buterin (@VitalikButerin) April 3, 2018

Vitalik also clarifies a statement made about LN and BCH from Samson, saying that SegWit is required. Roger refutes this claim, as any malleability fix (which SegWit is) is the only thing needed to activate Lighting on a network. BCH implemented Flexible Transactions to solve malleability, and in turn can use Lightning.

The debate finishes up with Jeff Paik asking both Ver and Mow “why is there such an animosity between you two?” Roger’s argument is that the core devs diverted the project away from what many of the users wanted towards a “store of value.” The opponents were belittled and censored on popular forums. Samson stated that calling Bitcoin Cash Bitcoin Cash is a huge issue. Vitalik commented on that claim saying it was unfair, comparing it to Ethereum Classic. Vitalik finishes his live-tweeting session by highlighting that both sides of this nasty argument need to improve.

What do you think about Vitalik’s comments? What’s your opinion on the Bitcoin vs Bitcoin Cash debate? Let us know in the comments below!

Images courtesy of Flickr, Bitcoinist archives, and Twitter/@VitalikButerin.