Introduction

Nearly a year ago on 1st August 2017 Bitcoin forked.

From the beginning of the fork there was huge contention, this contention took years to build up, which in my opinion makes the fork on of the most pivotal moments in Bitcoin's history and potentially in years to come, human history.

Today we have two main chains of Bitcoin, Bitcoin core and Bitcoin cash. Both of which follow separate paths and with different views on what peer-to-peer digital cash actually means, and whether or not it can scale.

Regardless of the above particular debate, which has been raging on for nearly a year, there is a smaller debate which pops its head into the mix every so often. What colour should "we" use for Bitcoin cash's logo?

All in all it's mostly boiled down to two colours, the original orange of Bitcoin and the new green . (however there's also blue used by electron cash and baby pink in the BCH Girls t-shirts)

(as a side, before beginning, I myself am more supportive of orange)

Basic Arguments for X Colour

Why Green (the short of it):

"Green means go"

"Green is calming"

"Green represents money"

"Green shows price is going up"

To avoid confusion to new comers

To avoid downfalls in brand due to Bitcoin core antics

Why Orange (the short of it):

One of the most visible colours (used to grab attention)

Is the original colour, and moving away from it begins a slippery slope

Delving into the Arguments

Why Green:

Before looking at the arguments like, "green means go" "green is calming" "green represents money" "green shows price is going up", we will first look at two posts in favour of green.

To start, here's a thoughtful post from /u/jessquit (anyone know his memo handle?), where he gives his personal preference of the logo being green. He then continues to explain reasons why he prefers green, and importantly brings up why a part of the community would like to keep orange.

The post doesn't however fully delve into the meat of why part of the community would prefer keeping the Bitcoin cash logo orange. Below is the snippet of the /r/btc post:

Now, here's below is snippet link which shows one of the many posts on /r/btc which advocate for green.

From the outset alone it's clear to see that the rational for using green is because it "looks so much better" in comparison to others.

While "comparison to others" only focuses on this very narrow top 10 coins, on one website, with a subjective statement.

When discussing that the post itself is emotional about the colour these two responses come from the original poster "I dislike orange. It's [an] aggressive and annoying colour. Green is much better." and "also orange is the color of freemasons". None of these statements are approached in the right manner and are purely emotional, and not focused on the subject.

I am not saying that everyone who would prefer green approach the situation like this, but that there is a fringe group which push almost fanatically, without sense. Similar to raspberry node people, but just a different flavour. This is important to note as we go forward for the next few years.

Cool, onto the things that people say in support of green and why they potentially miss the point:

"Green means go"

Yes it does mean go, however it's important to note why traffic lights (robots - in South Africa) are the colours that they are.

Red is used to grab ones attention in any environment to send a signal to the driver to STOP because if they don't there could be an accident. It is meant to quickly get the attention of the driver.

Amber/Orange is used for a similar reason to red, it is used so that even a sleepy drivers wondering eyes can catch the signal that he/she should slow down or be cautious.

Green does indeed mean "go" however it is not designed to grab the driver or pedestrians' attention. So it has little affect in drawing in new eyes which aren't actively looking for it.

"Green is calming"

It may indeed be calming, however we are in the market to draw as large a user base towards us. Colours which attract one's attention are key in doing this (red and orange in particular).

"Green represents money"

This too doesn't really get at the meat of what "we" want to achieve. "We" want to have people finding us, whether or not green represents money has nothing to do with it.

To take this a little bit further, green doesn't necessarily represent money everywhere. Let's take China (the second biggest economy by GDP) who's largest denomination is a bright red colour. Is the Chinese Renminbi not money?

"Green shows price is going up"

On the surface, that shouldn't be a determining factor for whether or not the colour is better. We're looking at drawing as many peoples eyes "our" way.

Lets look at it though, did you know that in Asian countries green represents prices going DOWN while red represents prices going UP? So if you buy a stock for say 100 China money, and the price goes up to 110, it will be shown in red, but if the price goes down from 100 to 90 it will be shown in green.

To avoid confusion to new comers

To avoid downfalls in brand due to Bitcoin core antics

In my mind the above two points are the most sensible positions in favour of green, or actually, are in favour of any colour except for orange.

When considering confusion to new comers, there are a few things which are important such as where is the new comer seeing Bitcoin cash, are they trying to purchase goods/services online, or at a brick and mortar store? Are they investing more than they can afford to loose, yet unwilling to do some reading of what they are buying?

When making purchases of goods and services online, the chances are that 10/10 of the time Bitcoin cash will be the cheaper alternative to transact with, also, as more merchants realise Bitcoin core is slow and expensive (particularly in times of network usage) there could be more merchants opting to rather use an alternative, like Bitcoin cash.

Furthermore there is little room for error as many websites are already using the new Bitcoin cash address format, for the major website which don't use the Bitcoin cash address format (like Bitpay) they make the process rather straightforward to limit hassles.

In terms of brick and mortar stores, there are only a few which actually accept Bitcoin core, and we've got to face it, not as many as we'd like accepting Bitcoin cash.

Bitcoin core actively promotes that it's not a cryptocurrency but rather a store of value, so there is no need for merchants to actually accept Bitcoin core. Normal merchants will easily be able to accept Bitcoin cash without any confusion as few people would want to transact with the unreliable and expensive Bitcoin core (Segwit).

Here's a couple of links of some other other posts advocating for green:

Why Orange:

One of the most visible colours (used to grab attention)

Bitcoin's logo was intentionally designed to catch ones periphery vision without effort. To attract ones eyes towards it with ease.

An easy way to think about this is seeing a girl (especially a pretty girl) in a bright red dress walking by. Chances are you'd be able to spot her from across the street in a heart beat, this is how some colours catch our eyes.

Bitcoin's colour is very close to an orange associated with safety orange ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safety_orange ), it is intentionally made so to catch ones attention, particularly on a crowded street with lots of hustle and bustle.

Is the original colour, and moving away from it begins a slippery slope

It's abundantly clear that Bitcoin core supporters will go to almost any length to try delegitimise Bitcoin cash (this is a separate history on it's own). The name "Bcash" is endemic of this need to try and delegitimise Bitcoin cash.

The Bitcoin logo colour is another way that Core supporter approach trying to detract the Bitcoin-ness away from Bitcoin cash. The saying "if you give them an inch they'll take a mile" comes to mind.

Before moving on, here's a nice quote about how to view the original orange logo:

The Bitcoin logo must stand out against all others.

As a person crosses the street they would first notice the Bitcoin logo and their sub-conscious tells them "Oh! I can buy using Bitcoin there" .

As they cross the street further they'll notice the Mastercard logo ( it stands out better than the VISA logo ) and their sub-conscious will tell them "I can buy using Bitcoin there, and Mastercard" .

Then the VISA logo will be noticed and their sub-conscious to tell them "I can buy using Bitcoin there, and Mastercard, and VISA" .

What's happening is the equivalent of Neuro-linguistic programming but for symbols.

A kind of Neuro-symbolic programming.



