Over 40,000 viewers joined a historic, rather epic livestream to examine and discuss the scheduled Bitcoin Cash (BCH) upgrade turned into a contentious hard fork, morphing to a full civil war for dominant implementation. Dubbed a Hash War by partisans of the BCH SV client, the respective sides (BCH ABC and BCH SV) used pure energy, more electrical power marshaled than that of the Hoover Dam, in attempting to establish early which development team would ultimately emerge victorious. Roger Ver, Vitalik Buterin, Amaury Séchet, among many others, gathered over 10 hours, popping in and out of the CoinSpice.io stream on YouTube to document Bitcoin history.

More Spice: Incredible Hash War Coverage from Podcasts to Videos and Articles

Historic First Hash War Day 1: Bitcoin Community Gathers at CoinSpice.io Livestream

“I feel an enormous amount of gratitude,” CoinSpice.io Hash War livestream host Mike Malley explained, “for the speakers and viewers who took part in this epic event. Our fantastic group of guests included those from BCH, BTC, and other crypto communities. The stream showcased a diverse assortment of talent each with a unique passion for spreading cryptocurrency beyond price speculation and into mainstream usage as p2p money.”

Fear, uncertainty, and doubt gripped the ecosystem enough to send prices across the crypto world plummeting just hours before the 15 November 2018 BCH scheduled upgrade. Malley, CoinSpice.io conspirators Jake Smith and Executive Editor Hayden Otto provided a place where a very nervous, anxiety ridden space could discuss an unprecedented happening.

The Bitcoin.com Tokyo, Japan offices served as a BCH ABC watch-a-thon as well. The company’s heavy hitters, from lead developer Corbin Fraser to its CTO Emil Oldenburg (in full military battle uniform at the 1 hour and 18 minute mark) joined the CoinSpice.io livestream early. Roars of laughter flooded stream audio, along with various updates as to blocks mined and guests rolling in (Malley was messaging, working contacts, the entire 10 hours to get as many voices as possible on).

A Who’s Who of Livestream Appearances

Just hours into the stream, CEO Roger Ver, along with Andreas Brekken of Shitcoin.com, joined. Ver appeared relaxed, as he and Moneybutton’s Ryan X. Charles traded theories as to why BCH SV’s hash power advantage up to the actual fork mining wasn’t being actualized. BCH ABC took an early lead and, as of this writing, never really relinquished its hold.

Malley served as host and moderator for the entire 10 hours, keeping participants respectful and calm. What started as a few dozen viewers spread to hundreds and then a couple thousand. The stream appeared to average 3 thousand curious onlookers and active side-chat participants at any one time. Total views were over 40,000.

BCH ABC “benevolent dictator” and main developer Amaury Séchet pinged-in, answering questions and detailing his thoughts. Bitbox developer Gabriel Cardona was also on hand, in and out throughout the stream, to give insight. As ABC began to pull away, crypto Twitter appeared to announce its victory, and luminaries tweeted congratulations. Around that same time, about 4 and a half hours into the stream, an equally congratulatory Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, made a triumphant appearance as cheers exploded when he jumped on the screen from a distant, unrelated conference.

Epic

Developers and partisans from across the spectrum were encouraged, including those from BCH SV and even Bitcoin Core (BTC), to engage and have their say. When the discussion became too “nerdy” or heated, host Mike Malley redirected questions, curating the topics expertly and with respect (he refused to take sides).

Guests from North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and South America joined the CoinSpice.io stream. Word spread, and soon Bitcoin Emperor Daniel Krawisz, Eléonore Blanc, Content & Community Manager at BTC.com, and Bitcoin Girl herself, Naomi Brockwell, along with Cornell University professor Emin Gün Sirer, philosopher Steve Patterson, Chris Pacia from OpenBazaar, and literally too many others to mention found their way to CoinSpice.io ‘s livestream to talk about everything from feeding chickens to the eventual fate of Bitcoin.

Whatever eventually happens, the clear winner of the Hash War Day 1 was the BCH community. Unlike Bitcoin’s first hard fork summer of 2017, most BCH enthusiasts welcomed uncensored dialog, conversation, disagreement. It was a genuine flourishing of different theories, ideas, views. Nowhere were those more in evidence than on the historic document, now permanently available on YouTube in 2 parts, the CoinSpice.io livestream.

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