Bitcoin SV in focus, honoring Satoshi or unstable fork?

By Austras | Crypto in focus | 20 Dec 2021

Background

Bitcoin SV is the result of a disagreement within the Bitcoin cash blockchain. The developers were arguing wheter to increase the blocksize limit and allow for use of smart contracts on the chain. A group that wished to stay closer to Satoshi Nakamoto's original vision created Bitcoin SV (Satoshi Vision) which would stick to the older protocol of Bitcoin. They viewed that changing anything other than block size would go against Satoshi.

This hard fork was headed by Craig Wright, today he doesn't do any coding for the project but was one of the most vocal supporters for it, you probably know him as the guy who claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto. The fork from Bitcoin Cash took place in November 2018 where users could swap their Bitcoin Cash for one Bitcoin SV on a 1:1 basis.

After the fork Craig Wright was dragging the project down as his claim were highly disputed and unbacked. Along with this the project had suffered several issues that further raised uncertainty around it. Fairly soon after launch the BitcoinSV Electrum wallet had a bug that resulted in several users losing their Bitcoin SV. During this year the chain has been 51% attacked twice, the attack during summer wiped out 470.000 transactions.

Network

Bitcoin SV essentially works the same as Bitcoin cash, before they started adding smart contracts that is. The size for the blocks that record the transactions were increased to allow for more transactions per block, effectively speeding up transfer speed. The team argued that Satoshi's original vision were to allow for anonymous payments and that smart contracts would go against that vision. That being said, there still has been developments that aim to improve stability and speed. One of the biggest changes since the fork is the Quasar change which increased the block size limit.

A timeline for all the popular Bitcoin forks and their updates, create by Reddit user u/lugaxker

The limit on each block has continued to increase and during August of this year the blockchain created a block with a size of 2 GBs, the largest on any blockchain so far. Just to recap, Bitcoin SV works similar to Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash, were miners work and compete to solve hard math problems and get rewarded with crypto. The bigger block size allows for more transactions to be handled with each block.

Use cases

Bitcoin was made to allow for anyone to have control over their own money and use it as their own discretion. Bitcoin can handle very few transaction due to it's block size limit, Bitcoin SV can handle more thanks to their changes. Services or merchants can use this system to allow for quick and easy payments from around the world. One such system is a chat service known as Twetch where users can pay each other with micropayments in Bitcoin SV. The chain also can handle smart contracts and store data on chain thanks to its large block size.

Bitcoin SV today

Bitcoin SV is in a rough spot, looking at their chart can tell you that from a glance. A blockchain that has been attacked, and successfully at that, is never good. Having your money in a system that puts them at risk is no better than having them with a bank. Craig Wright turning himself into a meme and the attacks have held this project back. I'm unsure how I feel about it, but it has produced large profits in several chart bursts previously, who says that can't happen again? But if you do invest into something that has been 51% attacked, be careful.