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Nothing is perfect, why NOT Bitcoin Cash?

Bitcoin Cash is amazing, but like anything there are valid points of view that disagree it will become the global reserve currency. Anyone using or investing in Bitcoin Cash should of course be aware of both sides of the argument.

The strongest arguments against Bitcoin Cash are:

  • Branding: Its brand name appears on the surface as a "knock off" of the """original""" Bitcoin. Historically this is not true, as BTC and BCH both split from the original Bitcoin, but to the uninformed observer BTC seems more legitimate. See also Should (or will) Bitcoin Cash rebrand?.
  • Misinformation: Due to the branding conflict, Bitcoin Cash (BCH) frequently suffers derogatory accusations and misinformation from Bitcoin (BTC) supporters and investors, calling it a scam, centralised etc.
  • Forks: Bitcoin Cash has had several community forks, first when it split from Bitcoin (BTC), and later on when Bitcoin Satoshi's Vision (BSV) and eCash (XEC) split away. These forks filtered out people from the community who wanted to try another direction with the project, but they also slowed the momentum of BCH. This could (potentially) continue to happen. One point of view is that these splits prove that Bitcoin Cash is not controlled by any one individual but rather by the community as a whole, but it could also be said that so many forks has just delayed the project too much to gain critical mass.
  • Network effect: For the aforementioned & other reasons, Bitcoin Cash has had a very difficult time building a network effect, which is critical to currencies. However ongoing network stability since the end of 2020 shows that momentum is beginning to return.
  • Hash rate: Bitcoin Cash (BCH) has had a far lower percentage of the mining hash rate than Bitcoin (BTC). The miners (usually) distribute themselves in the price ratio between the coins, and since BTC has had a higher price than BCH it has had more miners, thus more hash rate and better security. As the price of BCH increases or decreases relative to BTC, it gets increased or decreased miner support. If BCH becomes more valuable than BTC, then this argument will flip and BTC will be the less secure coin. In practice, BCH has had no successful hash rate attacks because all of the miners prefer to make profits in both BTC and BCH and have proactively moved to defend BCH whenever there has been suspicion of potential attacks. For more, see Is low hashrate a problem?
  • Price performance: When assessed on the all time chart, BCH has underperformed relative to BTC but new adopters are not affected by the previous struggles or initial buy in price of distant prior investors. For more context & explanation of the BCH price history, see If BCH is so great, why is the price (against BTC or USD) so low?.

The case against Bitcoin Cash can largely be solved with increased user education (to clarify the difference with BTC) and increased adoption (therefore boosting price and thus hash rate). However, critics argue that BCH will never be able to overcome those obstacles.

See also: Why Bitcoin Cash instead of another cryptocurrency?

See also: Should (or will) Bitcoin Cash rebrand?