Earlier this week Jonathan Hamel, a Bitcoin Entrepreneur, warned the House of Commons’ Standing Committee on Finance to be careful not to over-regulate digital currencies. He believes strict regulations could hinder growth and jeopardize Canada’s role as a leader in blockchain technology.During his presentation, Hamel sparked controversy by saying that although Bitcoin (BTC) had a lot of potential, Bitcoin Cash (BCH) was a ‘downright scam.’ He added further insult to BCH by referring to it by its derogatory nickname ‘BCash’, a nickname that its founders have vehemently opposed.
Understandably, calling BCH a ‘downright scam’ created quite a stir in the BCH community. The BCH hardfork is no stranger to controversy; the split has created an almost warlike atmosphere between different camps on either side of the BTC - BCH split.https://twitter.com/Beautyon_/status/976038473214955520Hamel goaded the BCH community prior to his presentation at Parliament by posting on Reddit that he planned to say "BCash is a scam.” His post also included a BTC address and the words “Donations are welcome.”Supporters of BCH called Hamel unethical for posting a BTC address. “Asking for donations for a statement you made while at a government hearing is kind of undermining the expertise of your whole talk, in the eyes of the listeners and media,” said one Reddit user. “You are aware you are out in public here?” One good point made by the Reddit community was that the technologies themselves are not fraudulent; rather it is the major players behind a currency that may potentially behave unethically.
From the very beginning, the split between BTC and BCH has been mired in controversy. The split between BTC and BCH started over a disagreement amongst the BTC community over a proposed scaling solution. The disagreement amongst the community resulted in the hardfork, which happened in August 2017.To much controversy, Roger Ver, co-founder of BCH, openly claimed that BCH is, in fact, the true Bitcoin. He claims that BCH is closer to the original vision of the creator of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto. https://twitter.com/rogerkver/status/934457741493657600A few months ago many of Ver’s points against BTC were true; BCH was much faster and cheaper than BTC. The aging giant, BTC, so far has failed to scale to meet the increased demand on the network brought on by a huge wave of adoption. The current result is high fees and slow transaction times for users. Unfortunately for Ver’s comments, though, scaling solutions like Segwit and the Lightning Network have brought BTC’s fees and transaction times down to more acceptable levels.
The immensity of Hammel’s controversial remarks overshadowed the rest of his presentation before the House of Commons. The majority of his statement to Parliament focused on the positive impact Canada was having on Blockchain technology. However, everyone is now fixated on his ‘downright scam’ comment.Image credit: Bitcoin Cash logo
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