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If BCH can defeat BTC, can't something defeat BCH?

Yes, but it's not going to happen. And even if it somehow did, all BCH investors would get an equal share of UTXOs via a chain split in any Bitcoin successor (unless the new competitor is a paradigm-shift above cryptocurrencies entirely, in which case BTC would have been weak to it as well).

Some believers in BTC try to ~ justify their irrational maximalism with "logic" that BTC is "only interesting as a 0 to 1 innovation". They wring their hands that if BTC can be outcompeted, it proves the fallability not just of BTC but of the concept of cryptocurrencies in general. This is obviously ridiculous, humanity has switched currencies many times in the past and will continue to switch in the future (one day, perhaps an interplanetary or interdimensional money will be invented to replace Bitcoin). Bitcoin is not a divinely unconquerable currency ending the marketplace competition for humanity's most efficient & economically sound money forever, it's merely the best technology we have access to in this moment.

That said, the perpetual possibility of a successful competitor does not imply that it is likely, imminent or simple.

Network effect is very powerful. Convincing people to swap from a large network to a smaller upstart competitor requires not just a small improvement, but at least an order of magnitude (ideally, several orders of magnitude) to outweigh the inconvenience and expense of switching costs. This is triply true for cryptocurrencies, where the network effect is not only the technology itself (nodes, wallets, mining software, developer tooling etc) but secondly the financial infrastructure (exchange liquidity, financial relationships etc.) and thirdly the social infrastructure (social consensus, podcasts, discussion channels, branding). This kind of triple network effect is almost impossible to overcome.

Almost impossible, but not quite. BCH is uniquely able to build a 10x advantage over BTC to enact a Flippening through a very unique combination of circumstances:

  • The hijacking of BTC and the associated propaganda, which has duped the BTC community into a variety of problems~ on their chain.
  • The legacy DAA of BTC, which cannot be upgraded due to ossificiation~ and ~, leaves the door ajar for a death spiral flippening
  • The integration of escape-velocity through DeFi & script upgrades, making BCH Turing-complete & ultra efficient~, and able to ~ship loads of upgrades that BTC cant

BCH has none of those weaknesses to its own future rival. BCH already has:

  • ~social resistance to hijacking propaganda & functioning governance permitting annual upgrades through the ~CHIP process.
  • An upgraded DAA preventing a death spiral.
  • Turing complete, a DeFi ecosystem & ultra-efficient script, allowing quantum resistance etc.

A future competitor would need to find several fresh, equivalent, titanic edges over BCH which the BCH community couldn't replicate - and there are currently none known (even theoretically, nevermind realistically).

Consider also that the attempt to flip BTC is a titanic undertaking that has taken:

  • Over a decade
  • 2 further civil wars ~
  • With a community persisting through 200x price declines

Nobody is going to be able to replicate that feat. Even if they could, it would take a full 10 years during which the BCH community could see and adapt to it.

UTXO ~​

To preserve the legitimacy of the Bitcoin successor, access to the sha256 mining industry and so forth, the successor has to chainsplit from the BCH chain - which gives all BCH investors an equivalent stake in the successor (just as all BTC investors received in BCH at the BTC/BCH split). So the invention of a newer and better Bitcoin is only beneficial to BCH holders (who can HODL their coins on the new chain to hedge against it flipping BCH, or sell it for more BCH if they don't believe in it).