Both factions, the ABC faction headed by Chinese crypto mining powerhouse Bitmain and investor Roger Ver, who is referred to as Bitcoin Jesus for his early advocacy of the original coin, and the SV, or Satoshi’s Vision, group is led by billionaire Calvin Ayre and Craig Wright, the self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous creator of Bitcoin, have been ramping up the amount of computing power they own to support their software version to win a race.
Both camps are losing about $700,000 a day to mine more blocks than the opponent and have the longer chain, according to BitMex Research. And that is not the only loss they are enduring – there is also the opportunity cost where they lose around $1 million for not mining on bitcoin chain, the economically logical move.
Each has pledged to keep going to win the so-called Hash War, where “hash” denotes computing power dedicated to the effort. While ABC is currently ahead, according to tracker Coin Dance, the balance of power could still shift.
“Imagine a management takeover in a $100 billion company, which you could effect by directing your resources,” said Lex Sokolin, global director of fintech strategy at Autonomous Research in London. “There is prestige, reputation and power that comes with being the main party responsible for deciding the vision and feature set of the future of money.”
The winner will get the privilege to impose his vision of Bitcoin on the BCH chain, making changes to the main client and essentially controlling the blockchain. All of that while claiming that that particular blockchain is the true vision of Satoshi Nakamoto. Ironic.
“You can pump price, you can dump price, you can push hash rate in one way or another,” said Travis Kling, founder of the hedge fund Ikigai. The coins, Bitcoin Cash ABC and Bitcoin Cash SV, together add up to significantly less than what Bitcoin Cash was worth before the fork, according to Poloniex exchange data. When Bitcoin Cash split off from Bitcoin in August 2017, investors actually saw the prices of the two coins appreciate.
In the meantime, the fight has been costly for investors, who have already seen Bitcoin Cash lose $2.75 billion in market value in the last week.
