Vlad Costea, host of the podcast ‘Bitcoin Takeover,’ interviews notable Bitcoin Cash supporter Roger Ver: reactions from the Bitcoin world.
After the end of the Craig Wright saga, another rather controversial figure has decided to make a return to the Bitcoin scene: Roger Ver. As a guest on the podcast “Bitcoin Takeover” hosted by Vlad Costea, the founder of Bitcoin Cash reemerged with the presentation of his new book “Hijacking Bitcoin: The Hidden History of BTC.”
Roger Ver is an early Bitcoin investor. Upon understanding the significance of Bitcoin technology, Ver decided to work towards increasing its adoption: in his view, the function of a digital medium of exchange took priority over network decentralization. His proposal to scale the Bitcoin protocol involved increasing the block size. The debate over block size sparked a veritable “war” that concluded with the victory of the small blockers and the implementation of the soft fork Segwit. The defeat of the big blockers, including Ver, led to the creation of the hard fork Bitcoin Cash, a network with 32 MB transaction blocks.
According to Ver, the “real Bitcoin” described in Satoshi Nakamoto’s white paper was never realized because it was immediately constrained by entities like Blockstream. In the book, Ver heavily criticizes the company, arguing that it influences the development of Bitcoin and changes within the network. There are also negative opinions about Adam Back, CEO of Blockstream, and Liquid Network, a Bitcoin sidechain developed by Blockstream.
Ver’s main thesis is based on a core principle: all the characteristics described by Satoshi Nakamoto in the white paper and all the functionalities implemented by Bitcoin’s inventor are perfect, while the aspects Nakamoto did not foresee and the changes made by other developers subsequently represent entirely wrong modifications.
During the podcast interview, Ver also criticized the Lightning Network (LN) and provided an analysis of the problems and challenges of self-custody.
Ver’s lies
The arguments put forward by Ver could stem from either a lack of understanding of the Bitcoin protocol and its full implications or a clear promotion of lies aimed at confusing people about the differences between Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash.
- Bitcoin is not what Satoshi Nakamoto wrote in the 2008 white paper. Firstly, the white paper is a technical summary of Bitcoin’s characteristics. Additionally, after the publication of the document, Bitcoin’s inventor wrote much more on forums like Bitcoin Talk.
- Although increasing the block size is the easiest and most immediate way to scale, it is a method that tends toward centralization. Such a choice indicates a lack of understanding of the characteristics of a distributed network. The blockchain is merely a highly inefficient database for processing transactions but essential for distributing network governance and making attacks on Bitcoin economically unfeasible. Each payment must be verified and stored by the entire global network.
To address the intrinsic shortcomings of the blockchain, the Lightning Network was developed as Bitcoin’s layer-2 solution, enabling instant transactions worldwide with nearly nonexistent fees.
Scaling the protocol by increasing block sizes would compromise the network’s decentralization because the cost of running a full node would become prohibitive. Additionally, the transmission and reception of large amounts of data, resulting from increased block sizes, introduce bottlenecks in terms of latency (data transmission time). This would lead to a completely centralized network with only a few entities capable of managing a full node.
The battle between small blockers and big blockers already took place between 2015 and 2017 and even inspired the writing of the book The Blocksize War: is it meaningful to discuss the issue again in 2024? - Despite promoters of other coins continuing to criticize the LN, Bitcoin has undoubtedly experienced broader adoption than any other cryptocurrency. This is evident in the communities established in El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala, South Africa, and the Philippines.
In contrast, for many years, Bitcoin Cash has attempted to establish communities based on circular economies, all of which have failed. Currently, there is no country with even minimal adoption of Bitcoin’s hard fork. An example of this is the experiment launched on March 24, 2022, on the Caribbean island of St. Maarten from Member of Parliament Rolando Brison, which had expressed a desire to transform the island into the “Caribbean capital of cryptocurrencies.”
Although the Blocksize War ended seven years ago, there are still some people who use Bitcoin Cash and believe in the project pursued by Ver. However, time and the market have established a different reality: Bitcoin Cash has a network of about 600 nodes, with a market capitalization of nearly $12 billion. Bitcoin, according to estimates by Luke Dashjr, has approximately 70,000 nodes and a market capitalization of nearly $1.4 trillion.
The reactions of the community
The release of the interview with Ver has sparked an uproar within the Bitcoin community on X. Among the various reactions, the user PsychedelicBart stated:
Plan B, creator of the Stock-to-Flow model, stated:
Francis Poulit, CEO of Bull Bitcoin, commented:
