Internal Conflicts are Still an Obstacle for the Crypto Space

Like any ideology throughout history, there will always be different forms of interpretation. This principle is even more evident within the cryptocurrency community. Many different leaders in the space debate various issues such as decentralization, block size, and scaling solutions. When it comes to the design of blockchain technology there are three critical issues:

• Planetary scaling with high throughput, high capacity, and low latency.
• Full decentralization, so that anyone can join as a validator.
• And consistency, so that all nodes see the same data at the same time. Typically a blockchain project can accomplish only two of these three concepts. In the crypto space, there are different visions of what these things truly mean.

Recently, Bitcoin Cash celebrated its first birthday. Despite what many critics may think, Bitcoin Cash’s presence is certainly not going anywhere. Ideally, the purpose of Bitcoin Cash was to create larger block sizes to ensure that fees were limited. Ultimately, this approach was intended to help people who earn less than $2 a day. Bitcoin Cash has accomplished some of what it intended to do however it sacrificed decentralization, as 49% of all their nodes run on Alibaba’s Facilities.

Bitcoin Cash has a purpose, however their branding approach is extremely unsettling when seen by bitcoin evangelists. Bitcoin Cash claims to be ‘the real bitcoin’ and thus a more accurate representation of the true satoshi vision. This inner conflict is very toxic when viewed by newcomers to the space. In addition, it has the potential to confuse new users and cause dangerous repercussions, considering sending Bitcoin to any non Bitcoin address will result in the loss of funds. Above all, it is sad to see some of the most valuable relationships within the community have been broken as a result of the Bitcoin Cash conflict.

One might ask the question, ‘why does this animosity not exist within the Ethereum community? Or at least to a lesser extent?’ Many ideologies started in Ethereum and later split into projects such as Ethereum Classic and Cardano. Still, there has not been significant hostility between these groups. Vitalik was asked this question recently in an interview by Tech Crunch and he responded by saying,

“In our case the social contract was always one in favor of ongoing evolution, proof of stake, and sharding. There are disagreements about how to implement these technologies. But both parties understand that even their opponent’s idea in its pure form is still vastly better than anything we have right now. The growth of a community strongly depends on what the first members believed and actively say. We try to value a healthy kind of intellectual diversity. And overall not being maximalist.”

Competition is essential for a capitalist marketplace to function, however that does not mean projects such as Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash cannot coexist in harmony. The same can be said for projects such as Ethereum and EOS. EOS promoters have historically advertised EOS as ‘the Ethereum killer.’ One should realize that EOS does not need to compete with Ethereum in order to survive. Theses public blockchains have the ability to compliment one another by providing different use cases to coexist. Either way, the hypothetical death of Ethereum would be detrimental to everyone in the cryptocurrency space, including EOS supporters. If the 2nd largest market cap coin were to die it would make investors less confident about the asset class as a whole.

If the crypto community continues to bully one another by making nasty comments toward others with opposing views, it will only inflame these internal conflicts further. If newcomers to cryptocurrency view this animosity they will only be repelled by such toxic behavior. There are enough obstacles that the crypto space has to overcome to achieve mass adoption, why must internal conflict be one of those obstacles?

Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor, this is not financial advice. Please do your own research and make objective decisions. This article is intended to educate readers on the animosity in the crypto space. The author of the article owns cryptocurrency.