Is Bitcoin Cash going decentralized?
Bitcoin has differentiated itself by most blockchains by having lost its founder, ever since Satoshi Nakomoto exited center stage. The centralization of power and decision making plagues every other project from Ethereum to Bitcoin Cash, Dash, Z-Cash — and every project proclaims that one day the coins will become decentralized.
As I ponder the above, I become floored at what’s happening in Bitcoin Cash — who’s founder Amaury Sechet of Bitcoin ABC is quickly eroding all influence in the currency. Where Bitcoin’s Satoshi exited stage left, Bitcoin Cash’s ‘Satoshi’ is being kicked out the back door.
There is now a considerable ecosystem built around Bitcoin Cash: many wallets, strong merchant adoption, many developers, many full node implementations. By many metrics it’s doing great — where it needs improvement is pitiful hash and has been plagued by heavily centralized governance. I recall when BSV/BCH split occured I saw CSW as the plague to BSV but the governance on BCH had its own centralization issues. If this fork occurs and ABC loses its relevance we will finally see the major achilles heal of Bitcoin Cash turn to steel as the project finally becomes decentralized — if you can kick out the project’s creator from his influence, you can surely kick out any other hostile actor who would inherently control significantly less influence.
Another theory I have is whether Amaury is actually choosing this as his opportunity to satoshexit the Bitcoin Cash project. His baby has grown, he’s gotten a little tired, but since he isn’t anonymous like Satoshi it’s harder to step away into the night…it’s much easier to antagonize the community and be kicked out. Might not be consistent with his personality, but it’s a fun theory regardless.
My belief is that this is a sign of maturity for Bitcoin Cash as its shaking out the core centralization of having the benevolent dictator run the roadmap. BCHN may not have a roadmap today, but one will emerge, a new form of consensus will emerge and the project will move forward.
The community would do well to look at BTC’s story however — with decentralization comes either ossification (changes require overwhelming consensus) or consistent future fork chaos (democracy, 51% rule the 49).
If one were to ask me, I am FOR the IFP in principal, but I firmly believe that a governance structure must be in place prior to implementation. Even if that address today were multisig and couldn’t be spent for a long time (e.g 1YR) in order to start the funding prior to the governance being in place. I don’t agree with the tax literally going to a Bitcoin ABC address.
