- Bitcoin Cash will become legal tender in St Kitts and Nevis in 2023
- The Roger Ver-led project will find a home in the place Ver has called home since 2014
- The county will also engage in Bitcoin Cash mining, which is not in line with its concerns on climate change
Anything Bitcoin can do, Bitcoin Cash can do just as well – or so it would seem. The Bitcoin fork, which was born out of the block size wars of 2015-2017, will become legal tender in St Kitts and Nevid next year, while the country will also engage in Bitcoin Cash (BCH) mining. The move may seem surprising, but it is less so given that Bitcoin Cash co-creator Roger Ver has been resident there for many years. It seems that Ver’s influence (and potentially his money) has proved critical, with the Prime Minister, Terrance Drew, announcing the adoption at a conference last week.
Ver’s Influence Critical
Bitcoin Cash was launched after Bitcoin employed Segregated Witness (SegWit) in July 2017, a contentious soft fork that led those who wanted bigger blocks to form another alternative currency, having failed with Bitcoin XT, Bitcoin Classic and Bitcoin Unlimited.
Ver was a huge proponent of bigger blocks, and the Bitcoin Cash 8MB block size, and he has not stopped in his support. Ver became a citizen of the Caribbean country in 2014, presumably aided by huge investment given his Bitcoin riches, and it seems he has used this influence to help get Bitcoin Cash accepted as legal tender, much in the same way as Bitcoin has done in El Salvador. The difference of course is that Bitcoin Cash will not use a layer 2 scaling solution such as the Lightning Network, with all transactions trading on-chain.
Bitcoin Cash Mining Undermines Climate Concerns
Drew made the announcement during a two-day Bitcoin Cash conference last week, saying that plans for BCH to become legal tender by March next year, and for the country to engage in BCH mining. This latter news is interesting, given that St Kitts and Nevis says that due to climate change, sea levels are expected to rise between 0.3 and 0.5 metres by 2090, while extreme weather events such as hurricanes, floods and droughts will also hit the island nation.
With proof of work mining known to have a negative environmental influence, it will be interesting to see how the country can reconcile one with the other.
