Share this article

There’s not much to smile about, but once in a while the market gifts us with a farce worthy of Monty Python. In the latest chapter of the Bitcoin Cash comedy, Calvin Ayre, the Black Knight of Crypto, has recently offered a truce in the ongoing war for Bitcoin Cash—just after having yet another limb chopped off.

In a blog post, the owner of CoinGeek – and one of the largest mining pools for Bitcoin Cash – proposed that “both sides agree not to attack each other’s chain, and let the chains compete as separate offerings in the marketplace. Basically, both sides give up the claim for BCH and start even.”

That’s a far cry from Mr. Ayre’s recent statements, which promised to continue the war “for months.”

The proposal follows one of the most contentious hard forks in cryptocurrency history. Craig S Wright, the leading proponent of the Bitcoin SV side (and almost certainly not Satoshi Nakamoto) had vocally insisted that his was the “correct” implementation of Bitcoin, and devoted the considerable hashing power of his mining pool to ensure that it would be adopted throughout the BCH network.

What followed was a war of attrition that seems to have been costly all around. Both sides are mining at heavy losses in an attempt to make their chains the longest in proof-of-work, which according to the Nakamoto Consensus defines “the” Bitcoin Cash.

Despite early figures suggesting an easy win for BSV, the opposing protocol, Bitcoin ABC, led the race in Proof-of-Work. Most cryptocurrency exchanges have since assigned the BCH ticker to ABC, leaving BSV in the unenviable position of being a fork-of-a-fork altcoin.

However, that came at heavy losses to both sides; BitMex estimated 343% losses on the BSV side and 58% on the ABC side. Prices have plunged all around; Bitcoin Cash briefly lost it’s 4th place position to Stellar by market cap.

Ayre’s message is not a total surrender; he reiterates claims that the ABC side “cheated” by using rented hash power, and that the addition of new programming commands make it “incompatible” with their version of Bitcoin.

But it may be the closest thing we get to an admission of defeat from BSV’s prickly billionaire backers. Instead of continuing the hash war, Ayre seems to be suggesting peaceful coexistence between the two chains – less than a week after declaring it a fight to the death.

He also promises to “make sure that no one in our camp launches any legal proceedings,” an apparent reference to the threats of legal action by Dr. Wright.

That may be a relief for the supporters of Bitcoin ABC, who have since seen the value of their investments plunge despite a conclusive victory in the hash war. It’s not enough to make their prices recover, but it might stop them from plunging.

Sadly for many BCH investors who have seen their tokens drop in value from over $600 to less than $250 over the last couple of weeks, ’tis not but a flesh wound. Perhaps Mr. Wright will stop trying to bite everyone’s legs off, at this point.

The author has investments in Bitcoin Cash. And also, apparently, Bitcoin SV.