Enforced, Controversial Donation Fee Going to Hong Kong Company Leaves a Bitter Taste!
The Bitcoin Cash (BCH) community faces yet another internal battle, this time a matter of funding to keep the ongoing technical development of BCH alive.
A group of influential Bitcoin Cash miners has proposed that 12.5% of newly-mined BCH should be redirected towards a development and infrastructure fund that will be held and controlled by a company based in Hong Kong.
In what would be a “short-term” funding plan, the leading group of miners would implement the new rules enforcing miners to pay a donation fee via a soft fork because a hard fork would likely further tear the BCH ecosystem in half.
Miners contributing to the funding of the respective blockchain they are mining on isn’t anything new, as Dash and Zcash also implemented a mining fee that goes towards the infrastructure and ecosystem’s development, amongst other use cases.
With the mining reward halving also happening on the BCH blockchain this year, it appears that plans to ensure BCH developers aren’t strapped for cash are being drafted.
“Various major BCH mining pools (BTC.TOP, Antpool, BTC.com, ViaBTC, Bitcoin.com) are preparing to implement a 6-month short-term donation plan.
This plan aims to provide sufficient funds for BCH developers to accelerate the BCH development before the upcoming bull market in 2020–2021/22.” – Bitcoin Cash Funding Plan Announcement
The Dealbreaker!
Forcing miners to submit a slice of their earnings (via mining) to a Hong Kong-based corporation goes against the very essence of what Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash are supposed to represent: an open-source, trustless, and decentralized payment system.
Many view the donation proposal as a form of enforced tax. With the community feeling that there is little opportunity to voice their opinions and have their say on whether this is implemented later this year, another question being raised is who gains access to and manages the donated BCH funds…
Third and final problem is that there are many underspecified aspects to the proposal. Specifically, who will manage the collected funds and how will they be distributed? This is exactly when some much needed community discussion would have been useful.
— Emin Gün Sirer (@el33th4xor) January 23, 2020
Miners not participating in paying the donation fee will be rejected (“orphaned”) from the BCH blockchain, rendering their mining efforts worthless and resulting in wasted resources and time.
“To ensure participation and include subsidization from the whole pool of SHA-256 mining, miners will orphan BCH blocks that do not follow the plan. This is needed to avoid a tragedy of the commons.
The initiative shall last 6 months (May 15th 2020 — November 15th 2020).” – Bitcoin Cash Funding Plan Announcement
The second, and substantive, problem is the way the proposal came out of nowhere. Springing such a proposal, with orphaning built in, on a community with no prior discussion was terrible PR and community management.
— Emin Gün Sirer (@el33th4xor) January 23, 2020
https://twitter.com/el33th4xor/status/1220293300168679424
BTC vs. BCH vs. BSV! Bitcoin Cash Battle-Hardened From Over Two Years of War With BTC and BSV
Since BCH split from Bitcoin (BTC) to become its own independent blockchain in August 2017, its ongoing rivalry with BTC has become a well-known aspect of the tribalistic nature of the cryptocurrency community.
In late 2018 after conflicting interests began to internally clash, BCH itself once again endured a severe split, resulting in the emergence of Bitcoin SV (BSV). This concluded in a short-term battle of miners, leaving BCH and BSV at a stalemate and stunting the two coins in terms of hashing power and developer resources.
The Bitcoin Cash community must now discuss and decide whether this short-term donation fee will be accepted or if other solutions for funding and maintaining the infrastructure of BCH will be utilized.
This post is for educational purposes. All information used is referenced accordingly. This is not investment advice; please always do thorough research and only invest what you are willing to lose, especially in times of uncertainty.