Weekly musing #20 - Let the market speak
Bitcoin Cash
It's inspiring to see how well Bitcoin Cash has done in this last week.
The market has certainly run with it.
It's unclear whether the temporary spike in transactions that led to the mining of a nearly 8MB block was an attempt to attack the network, or simply a test of transaction capacity. It certainly was not a scheduled test by any of the main implementations, so naturally it put everyone on alert.
Regardless of intent, it showed the network was more than capable of absorbing such loads, and may have contributed to increasing confidence among users and those watching on the sidelines.
If it was intended as an attack, it's safe to say it backfired spectacularly.
Price rises brought parity in terms of mining profitability with the legacy chain.
A further difficulty reduction by about 40 percent boosted that profitability advantage (at least momentarily) to upwards of 150%. Miners have certainly paid attention, with large new pools joining to mine the chain.
All signs point to continued support and growth. We shall need to let the market speak, and listen carefully to what it says.
Bitcoin ABC
I believe we need to open the public discussion to introduce a separate address scheme in this coming week.
Reproducing the import-related wallet issues has proved difficult, and work is still ongoing.