BCH–BSV hash war
The November 2018 contest between Bitcoin ABC and Bitcoin SV over Bitcoin Cash's upgrade, which split BCH into two chains.
The wiki's angle: Bitcoin Takeover has heard both sides on air: Kurt Wuckert Jr. called the ABC side dishonest in how it fought, while Amaury Séchet argued BSV's whole premise was that whatever Craig says is gospel.[4][6]
The split
Bitcoin Cash split on 15 November 2018, its scheduled upgrade day[1]. The last common block, 556,766, was mined by SVPool; the first BSV-only block, 556,767, followed 25 minutes later[1]. Bitcoin Cash activated Canonical Transaction Ordering (CTOR) and OP_CHECKDATASIG that hour, while BSV rejected CTOR, restored four opcodes and set a 128 MB default[1].
Two camps
One camp, supported by Roger Ver and Jihan Wu of Bitmain, promoted Bitcoin ABC with 32 MB blocks; the other, led by Craig Wright and Calvin Ayre, put forward Bitcoin SV with 128 MB[2]. On split day BCH traded at about $289 and BSV at about $96.50[2]. Exchanges kept the BCH ticker on the ABC chain and listed the other chain as BSV[1].
Accounts on the podcast
On S17 E39, Kurt Wuckert Jr. said the SV node had no replay protection, leaving the SV side scrambling when the chain split[3]. He described the ABC side as “very dishonest in the way that they came at this hash war”[4]. He also recalled ABC pushing a patch mid-war that added a rolling checkpoint, which he remembered as every 10 blocks; this detail is his recollection and is not verified here[5].
Aftermath
Binance delisted BSV in April 2019, with Kraken, ShapeShift and Blockchain.com following within days[1].
References
- btkBitcoin SV: Big Blocks All the Way (BTCTKVR: Forks!) [archived]
- secondaryWikipedia, “Bitcoin Satoshi Vision” [archived]
- episodeS17 E39: Kurt Wuckert Jr. — the SV node had no replay protection▶ listen at 1:06:55timestamp transcript-derived, pending a listen [archived]
- episodeS17 E39: Kurt Wuckert Jr. on the 2018 hash war▶ listen at 1:09:48timestamp transcript-derived, pending a listen [archived]
- episodeS17 E39: Kurt Wuckert Jr. — ABC’s rolling checkpoint during the hash war▶ listen at 1:13:03timestamp transcript-derived, pending a listen [archived]
- episodeS17 E19: Amaury Séchet on Bitcoin SV — “whatever Craig says is gospel”▶ listen at 1:56:42timestamp transcript-derived, pending a listen [archived]