Is Bitcoin Cash Promising A Flippening Or Is It Just A Complete Flap?

 Bitcoin Cash is always knee deep in controversy. If only for its anti-Bitcoin community, it’s not uncommon to see Bitcoin Cash appear as a catalyst in many scandals and arguments. Overall though, this makes Bitcoin Cash very fun to write about. It’s a fiery cryptocurrency, led by a very passionate community. Even so though, we want to take a moment to look at Bitcoin Cash in practice in order to determine if Bitcoin Cash really can be the success that it strives to be. A reminder It’s hard to keep up with the battle between Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash, therefore we want to serve you a quick reminder. Bitcoin Cash is the original hard fork of the Bitcoin network. When this happened, Bitcoin split into two, Bitcoin Core (known as Bitcoin) and Bitcoin Cash. Because of this fork, we now can’t determine which of the two is actually built on the original Bitcoin protocol anymore. Bitcoin Cash fans argue that Bitcoin Cash is the original Bitcoin and of course, Bitcoin Core fans argue that Bitcoin is the original Bitcoin. Is this important? No, we don’t think it is, however from a cultural perspective, I can see why the Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin Cash camps to clash at times. By being the original, they are holding true to the word of Satoshi Nakamoto and can also take the credit for kick-starting the incredible industry and community that is cryptocurrency. The goal for Bitcoin Cash Because of all of this, Bitcoin Cash have set themselves a ‘target’ of sorts. Known as the ‘flippening’ the Bitcoin Cash community believe that one day (because Bitcoin Cash is the original Bitcoin) the market cap of Bitcoin Cash will rise past that of Bitcoin’s, causing Bitcoin Cash to rest in the top spot. Roger Ver, the ‘spokesperson’ for Bitcoin Cash, also known as Bitcoin Jesus, has recently bet Jimmy Song from Bitcoin $1 million that the flippening will happen. Ver has said: “I’ll bet a million dollars, equivalent to whatever cryptocurrency you want, that within ten years, Bitcoin Cash will have a larger market cap than the BTC version of Bitcoin today”. It’s clear that Ver and the rest of the Bitcoin Cash community are very certain that the flippening will happen, with the next ten years too. What we need to ask ourselves now is this - is Bitcoin Cash going to overtake Bitcoin? Can Bitcoin Cash overtake Bitcoin? In order to answer these questions, we need to look at two key aspects of Bitcoin Cash in order to determine its future growth and potential. We need to look at Bitcoin Cash adoption through its merchants and customers, and we need to look at the technical aspects of Bitcoin Cash, mining and of course its development team. Bitcoin Cash Adoption Adoption is driving Bitcoin Cash. Many believe that Bitcoin Cash will be the first internationally adopted cryptocurrency, though when we look at the figures it seems that against Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash adoption is a long way off. Image sourced from Bloomberg This graph, sourced from Bloomberg highlights that Bitcoin Cash use in traditional commerce settings is actually on the decline as a result of research carried out by Chainalysis. The start of 2018 see’s a slight uptrend in Bitcoin Cash use, though overall, this is far off the level of adoption seen by Bitcoin, as per the graph. Bitcoin Cash Development Okay, so perhaps the mining and development of Bitcoin Cash can provide a more promising outlook? A recent exploration by Coindesk has found that overall, towards the end of August 2018, Bitcoin Cash was around 20% less profitable to mine than Bitcoin. Image sourced from Coindesk If Bitcoin Cash mining remains unprofitable, the entire network could be at risk of grinding to a halt. As mining difficulty rises and as the price of Bitcoin Cash falls, miners will have access to tighter and tighter profit margins. The same is happening within Bitcoin too, however it seems to affect is somewhat amplified within Bitcoin Cash. In terms of development, thankfully the Bitcoin Cash community do have a very committed team of developers that are working hard to make the Bitcoin Cash network smoother, faster and future proof, though is this really going to be enough to ensure the flippening can take place? Moreover, there are plenty of arguments in place that suggest, as a result of the Bitcoin Cash development team, the currency is becoming less decentralised, meaning once again, Bitcoin could be about to take the upperhand in this area too. The flippening So, with all of this in mind, is the flippening a realistic prospect? Based on the fact it’s clear that more people are using Bitcoin and that more people are going to be mining Bitcoin, the flippening is going to struggle to take hold in the next ten years. Bitcoin Cash have a lot of work to do to secure their future. Yes, they have a great community of developers that could make this happen, however this in itself could damage the reputation Bitcoin Cash. Roger Ver probably needs to put his money where his mouth is, otherwise, maybe he should stop issuing million dollar bets until Bitcoin Cash finds itself in a better position going forward? References Bloomberg - Graph Coindesk - Graph