Endless dispute over difficulty algorithm, BCH may face another fork?

The Bitcoin Cash (BCH) community is divided over whether to change the cryptocurrency’s difficulty adjustment algorithm, with a recent developer meeting reportedly ending with attendees walking out in anger.

On August 4, Chris Pacia, the lead developer of the P2P market OpenBazaar and a volunteer developer of BCH, tweeted that “many people left” the meeting because there was no consensus on whether to adjust the difficulty algorithm of BCH. Some BCH developers even listed the five major “crimes” of the ABC team.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin responded on Twitter that he didn’t understand why people in BCH “care so much” and that “the current algorithm is fine,” adding:

“Being optimistic that BCH development would improve after CSW’s exit is clearly one of my worst predictions.”

Some sources have suggested that the increasingly tense discussion over the difficulty algorithm could lead to another BCH chain split. Hayden Otto, an outspoken Australian BCH supporter, tweeted:

“After the split, I will stick with the BCH chain.”

Difficulty algorithm dispute is “trivial”

But in the interview, Otto said his tweet was a joke aimed at “attacking” those who oppose the BCH core development team, namely Bitcoin ABC developers.

He downplayed the significance of the community disagreement, calling it a “small matter,” but also said that “enemy agents masquerading as BCH supporters” are “creating confusion and sowing division” under the guise of the difficulty adjustment algorithm (DAA):

“There is already a group of people who prioritize modifying the DAA, hoping to prevent miners from operating on the current DAA by switching a large amount of hash power to BCH - which would cause inconsistent block times.”

“This will only affect people who deposit money on exchanges, as they require (non-essential) deposit confirmations, but will not affect the vast majority of individuals or businesses using BCH, as 0 confirmations are sufficient.”

Otto believes forking is impossible

Otto mentioned that Bitcoin ABC announced that there will be a comprehensive adjustment to the difficulty algorithm in BCH's next upgrade scheduled for November 15. However, he said that those who pushed for the adjustment are still unhappy because the upgrade plan proposed by ABC did not deploy BCHN as they suggested.

Despite the disagreement, Otto believes that a chain split caused by BCHN is unlikely, saying that the “BCHN software is not widely adopted by miners” and therefore its supporters “will not have a majority vote to pass the changes they want when upgrading.”

“They are now relying on a ‘proof of social media’ strategy to try to convince miners and businesses running ABC to capitulate and switch to BCHN’s software.”

“Right now, it’s all just online posturing, and as for the upgrade date, I don’t think BCHN supporters will move forward with anything. It will be a minority chain, and another split will be catastrophic for those following the minority chain.”

BCH community disputes have never stopped

Since the birth of BCH, there have been many disputes within the community on different issues. BSV was split due to the dispute over the deployment of opcodes, and this difficulty algorithm has triggered another debate.

Yesterday in the WeChat group "Bitcoin ABC Social Chat", Bitcoin ABC chief developer Amaury Sechet admitted that he was tired of the dispute. He believed that the split at the social level (i.e. the human level) always preceded the split on the chain. And this social split has lasted for a long time, so it is only a matter of time before the split on the chain occurs.

Today, the cryptocurrency blogger "Bitcoin" revealed that ViaBTC mining pool CEO Yang Haipo will initiate another fork of BCH, and the new fork chain code is BCC. Yang Haipo said on Weibo today: "BCH has suffered from ABC for a long time, and it is time to make a change."

BCH will face another fork? What do you think?

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