Is Craig Wright Satoshi and Does It Matter ?

* This post was written before the fork and needs to be updated. I wrote it because I was worried that many Bitcoin owners who will be getting their BCH tokens have been advised in the main forums to ditch them for BTC as soon as possible in order to tank the price of the new token. I felt that this was wrong. At the very least the public should have been advised to do nothing and wait for events to play out. Acting on the wrong advice will lead to losses.

Does it matter if CSW is Satoshi - NO DEFINITELY NOT . Does it matter if you believe CSW is Satoshi - YES. Under normal circumstances no, but these are not normal circumstances. We are getting a hard fork on 1 August. This means we will all have BCC and BTC in our wallet. You have a choice Sell one or the other or keep both. Where you end up depends on what you believe in. I believe that the BCC fork will survive and in the end will surpass the BTC chain.

1) CSW supports the BCC chain.
He is nChain and they are introducing split chain and new op codes for Turing completeness
2) Replay protection on BCC chain

These people are serious and responsible, plus the system they use makes it fraud proof and opens the way for sharding.

These are enormous improvement to the Bitcoin protocol. Turing completeness was the whole reason for Ethereum's inception.

3) Sharding is the holy grail for Ethereum and they have not succeeded. Basically sharing the processing load on different computers. BCC adopts Bip143 style signature, which solves malleability and makes the system fraud proof, which is necessary for sharding.
All these developments are on BCC and not BTC. Can they not be adopted? Sure they can, but Core have proven so far that they don't look outside their sphere. Plus they absolutely hate the big blockers.

4) What happens after the fork?
The first thing is that BCC has bigger blocks while BTC will have 1MB for at least 3 months. So it will be cheaper to transact on BCC. This I believe is the biggest organic push by users to BCC and the miners and developers must follow the users. Also the people on the BTC side of the chain will always be arguing if the 2mb hard fork will be activated while te people on BCC will get on with business. You win by what you do not what you say.

Will BCC chain survive? What if it has low hash rate behind it? It will survive because the community sees the benefit of having a second option in case the first option fails. Means the big miners will not attack the BCC chain. And there will be a second chain because the people behind it are willing to mine the chain even though it is less profitable to do so.

So it is important on which chain you want to be on. You can sit and do nothing and all will be well but what if you want to spend some BTC? Are you going to spend your BCC or BTC? If you want to take a position, taking the wrong position means you will lose your money. So it is important if you believe CSW is Satoshi or not. Long term (6 months) both chain cannot survive one will wither and become an Alt.

Why I believe CSW is Satoshi
It really does not matter if he is or is not, except to satisfy one's curiosity. But look at it this way. What does it take to be Satoshi? He must have very good grasp of programming, cryptography, game theory, Maths, Economics and Philosophy. Is Satoshi one person or a group. I argue that it is one person and he solve the Byzantine Generals problem, help by small group of people after the release of the software. You will also need to have a connection to these small group of people.

Solving the Byzantine General problem is what scientist call a hard problem. It is not obvious and the solution is worthy of the Nobel prize. So why did he release it anonymously? I think because he knew that if it did not get traction and adoption it will die either from within or without. He was worried about Wikileak using bitcoin before Bitcoin was ready. Attracting attention to it will surely get it stomp on by the authorities, and open himself to criminal prosecutions. Every other person who engaged in digital money up to then have had legal and criminal problems to content with. Can you count how many people dismiss it outright at first glance only to rediscover and adopt it later when it refuses to die.

Lastly, this is a gift to humanity. It takes a special kind of person to do that. One must have "lived". Such a person will be a contradiction. A complex person. One where the Yin and Yang flares up easily.

Bitcoin and Crypto Currency - The Evolving Landscape

Do not take this post as Investment advise. At best it is how I see the Crypto space after delving in it everyday for the last 4 years. It is clear now that bitcoin would never go to zero more so as adoption increases worldwide and it becomes more mainstream. Investment is all about value and timing, and of us will have different risk appetite.

Today (15/6/2017) total market capitalisation of all crypto coins and tokens is 110 Billion USD. It is actually incredible that something that is purely a result of computer hashing has aquired this amount of value. Over time there will be jostling for relevance and position among all the coins and some will increase in value while others will trend to irrelevance. That said it is becoming clearer how the coin landscape will settle.

The rise of Ethereum, debut of Zcash and finally the resolution of Bitcoin governance will clear the fog. Underlying every coin is it's utility as a currency. Every coin can be used as a currency, as long as there are people out there who are will to accept it in exchange for goods and services. Which coin is used in the transaction will then come down to how well the coins are distributed and how easy it is to transact in that coin.

The main currency coins are Zcash, Bitcoin, Litecoin and Dogecoin. Ethereum is not designed as a currency but more as a smart contract platform. It currently sits on the second spot in market capitalisation, I am skeptical about Ethereum because is it always just one step away from calamity and disaster. After the DAO, I believe that it would be virtually impossible to recover from another hack, code or user error disaster. That it has found a new use in ICO use is commendable but I really do wonder how that much monetary value can be place on an insecure platform. Quite irresponsible maybe even fraudulent and certainly greedy.

Bitcoin is the first and most secure platform. No coin can even come close to Bitcoin's security. However it has a serious flaw, which is fungibility. Bitcoin is pseudonymous. If a bitcoin address can be link an owner, all transaction from that address and owner is open for view and analysis. For most transactions this is not a problem but in the competitive commercial and sovereign sphere this is not acceptable. Other coins such as Monero and Dash aim to fill this function but it will find difficulty in gaining adoption partly because of security but mainly because most of the coins are held in very few hands. Zcash in my opinion will win the title of being the fungible coin.

Bitcoin has a value today of $2600 USD. As the market capitalisation of crypto coins increases and becomes more mainstream this valuation becomes less relevant. Among crypto coins Bitcoin will be the unit of measure and as more people worldwide use crypto rather than fiat the Btc/USD pair will become meaningless as the USD is an inflationary currency and subject to arbitrary devaluations. Bitcoin will become the unit of measure because it is the most secure coin and no other coin can ever come even close to it. Proof of Work (POW) is the only security that matters. Proof of Stake (POS) is just a rich man's game.

Zcash will be used as the high value transnational coin used by large corporation and nations. If I am right it will achieve a value higher than Bitcoin ie x number of Btc. I see this scenario developing because Zcash is a coin designed with privacy and fungibility foremost in mind. More important is the fact that by the way this coin was introduced no one person holds a large stash. It is very widely and thinly distributed. Zcash is the Platinum to Bitcoin Gold.

Over time (4 years) Zero Electric Coin Company will be the largest holder of Zcash. By then I can envisage nations and corporations holding shares in this company. In the meantime Zcash is very easy to mine on CPU's and GPU's. This will guarantee widespread mining adoption and even further distribution of the coin.

Litecoin will prove itself as highly utilised as a development platform. Litecoin is the Silver to Bitcoin gold.

Dogecoin will be the coin for everyday use. It's value is the number of coins in circulation currently around 109 billion and increasing by 10 billion a year. It has a large number of users and adopters already in place starting as a joke and tip coin.  The younger generation will start with this coin and there are also many lite Dogecoin wallets available on smartphones. Dogecoin is the Copper to Bitcoin Gold.

Fear Not - The Chain Will Split But BTC is still the longest chain.

Update 28/7/2017

Looks like we will have a split. I am on the Satoshi chain that is the chain without Segwit.

As we are very close on the inevitable activation and mining of the first Bitcoin Unlimited block there is great fear and trepidation among the community that the event will result in a chain split.

I have come to the conclusion that this chain split will not occur, because deep down the people who finance Blockstream are rational businessmen. They will move their development to the BU chain.

Back when the bitcoin foundation was falling apart they saw a good opportunity to co-op the very best developers to control the development and upon it build their commercial platform, and they very nearly succeeded. Why do you think the developers were so exasperated that they tried so hard to get Roger Ver to support Segwit, through a series of debates, after they saw the possibility of what they thought was a foregone conclusion (Segwit activation), was slipping away?

I am sure that the total bitcoin holdings of all the people in Blockstream added together is less than that of Roger Ver. I will even venture further to say that all the developers receive their remuneration in fiat and they themselves admitted that they do not use bitcoin regularly. So why are they so desperate to get Segwit activated?

The people funding Blockstream will be savy businessmen and as such they would have dangled a carrot in front of the developers in the form of a bonus when Segwit activates. Normally as developers they would earn their considerable salary. My guess is that, if Segwit activates, they would be even better rewarded with cash and stock options. I too would be totally annoyed, if I see my chance of being a millionaire, slip sliding away.

I think that the chain will not split, because the only important thing to the investors is that their development is on the main chain. It will not matter which chain. Sure they would have more say and control if it is Segwit but even if it is BU their 2.0 platform investment is not lost. Since they also control Bitfury and BTCC they will move that hashing across. There might be some holdout with some developers keeping the smaller chain going but the hash rate will be so minuscule that it would only be academic and can easily be rendered useless. Mining at $1500 beats mining at $20 or less.

Roger being asked if he will endorse Segwit.
https://youtu.be/ZlBKMDQ957Q?t=54m

Tone Vs Roger
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdyIJ-BUPaU

Johnny Vs Roger
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JarEszFY1WY&t=18s

I need bitcoins now. PLEASE HELP!!

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India's Demonetization Is A Success And Bodes Well For Bitcoin and the Digital Economy.

On the 8th November 2016 when Modi cancelled the 500 and 1000 rupee notes, and gave the populace 50 days to exchange old notes for new legal tender, the international press condemned and vilified the move. One must ask if they really had India's best interest at heart.

By any measure this demonetization effort has been a success. India is a country where at every election people die. Yet this unanticipated move was without protest and practically bloodless. In one move Modi have dragged his backward and feudal people screaming and kicking into the 21st century and internet banking. I would consider this one move to be the awakening of the Indian tiger.

We can be sure that every Indian young or old, male or female would now know of Modi Narendra and what he did for India. ( I would lay bets that there are people in the USA who don't know who Obama is or that Trump is the president elect.) By financially empowering every Indian with an awareness of the knowledge economy he will move India forward faster than with any other development route possible.

Bitcoin companies like Zebpay, Unocoin and Coinsecure have mushroomed in member and users and a system like Africa's Mpesa may not be too far off. Hopefully their system will not be monopolise by some giant telco like Safari-com in Kenya, choking of competition and development.

India is on-boarding users to bitcoin at a rate of over 100,000 a month. Such growth cannot be ignored by governments of the world at large. The only question now is, which country will be the first to adopt bitcoin as a national currency. The one that does will be a very rich country indeed going forward.