Craig Wright’s vision of creating one coin to rule them all seems to going up in flames, and he doesn’t seem to be taking it well. Already falling behind in the hash war ever since the Bitcoin Cash hard fork on November 15, various exchanges have since issued warnings over the legitimacy of his Bitcoin SV coin, while leading data website CoinMarketCap’s has now apparently chosen its side in the divorce. Wright has responded by lashing out at other cryptocurrencies and stating “I am your worst nightmare” to those who don’t take his coin seriously.
Red Flags
Wright’s problems started when Bitcoin ABC fired a shot across the Bitcoin SV bows, mining an empty Bitcoin SV block straight off the bat once Bitcoin Cash forked. Following this it raced into a huge lead in the mining race. Bitcoin SV has since closed the gap, but the real story has been happening away from the mining situation. Sentiment was always going to be the biggest decider in the war, and it seems that sentiment is against Bitcoin SV and its divisive figurehead.
Leading crypto exchange Kraken posted a blog on its website, accompanying the listing of Bitcoin SV with a number of red flags and stating that “Bitcoin SV does NOT meet Kraken’s usual listing requirements. It should be seen as an extremely high risk investment.” Kraken was one of the many exchanges that agreed to list Bitcoin ABC prior to the fork.
CoinMarketCap has since dealt a further blow to the legitimacy of Bitcoin SV by merging Bitcoin Cash with Bitcoin ABC, stating that “a majority of exchanges are using the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) to refer to the Bitcoin Cash ABC implementation”. This short but damning statement seems to sum up how the market feels about the two forked coins.
Wright Dials Down the Rhetoric
Wright himself has remained publicly bullish on the prospects of Bitcoin SV, but his pre-fork rhetoric where he continually bashed Bitcoin ABC and its proponents has been notably absent in the last few days. Instead, he has turned his ire towards XRP and their alleged status as a security and Ethereum’s perceived lack of a use case, while also touching on other topics like quantum computing.
An article from Bitcoin SV backer Coingeek yesterday claimed that “it might seem like everything is riding on the outcome” of the fork but that Wright was “more intent on presenting the possibilities unlocked by adhering to Satoshi Nakamoto’s vision for Bitcoin as a decentralized ledger.” Given how much importance Wright put on the fork in the run up to it, threatening to get lawyers involved at one point, this is an odd perspective to have after months of work and borderline vitriol on social media. Whether Wright has chosen to be dignified in advance of an imminent victory, or if he is scrabbling around for any way to save face to distract from a messy defeat, remains to be seen.
