Editor: This article offers an opinion about an important and upcoming event in the Bitcoin space. Though I don’t necessarily agree with the author, he does offer some of the best descriptions/explanations of SegWit, SegWit2X, Bitcoin as a community or currency that I’ve read anywhere. When you’re finished reading it, the comments at the original site offers additional insights.
Back in 2004 someone launched a web site called FuckedGoogle.com dedicated entirely to predicting the imminent demise of what is now the world’s second biggest company by market capitalization. Needless to say, that site is no longer around (though the URL is still in use by a Japanese site) but you can go back and revel in the schadenfreude of one of the worst predictions ever made courtesy of the Internet Archive.
I mention this because I want you to know, dear reader, that I am fully cognizant of the perils of making bearish predictions about new technology. But, to quote another well-worn and wholly unreliable aphorism, this time it’s different. It really is.
Some time in mid-November, barring some truly miraculous reconciliation, a group of Bitcoin companies are going to launch a new version of the Bitcoin protocol that will split the block chain into two parts. This has been a topic of much debate and hand-wringing within the Bitcoin community for the last several months, but has been largely ignored by the rest of the tech world because this is not the first time this has happened.
The bitcoin chain has been hard-forked at least five times, most recently last August when Bitcoin Cash (BCC) launched, an event that was preceded by a great deal of wailing and gnashing of teeth. Like FuckedGoogle (and, I might add at this point, the apocalyptic prognostications prior to December 31, 1999) the naysayers were proven resoundingly wrong. Since BCC launched, the value of both chains has risen dramatically, at least when measured in US dollars.
But, as they say, this time it’s different. Continue reading…
