nChain
Craig Wright's company in the Bitcoin SV split: it announced the Bitcoin SV client in August 2018, and the Ayre Group took control of it in 2023.
The wiki's angle: in the BSV story nChain is the institution and Wright the voice. Kurt Wuckert Jr. remembers it as a company built to scale Bitcoin that was “very roundly rejected”; BCH developers remember it as the side that forked off.[3][2]
Bitcoin SV
Bitcoin Takeover's BSV article says that in 2018 “Craig Wright's nChain” called Bitcoin ABC's proposed changes an unauthorized redesign, and in August 2018 announced its own client, Bitcoin SV, which would reject them and raise the default block size from 32 MB to 128 MB[1]. Exchanges kept the BCH ticker on the ABC chain and listed the nChain chain as BSV[1]. See BCH–BSV hash war.
Accounts from both sides
On S17 E26 Calin Culianu said the nChain people produced research arguing the changes were not needed yet and “got really pissed off and they forked off”[2]. On S17 E39 Kurt Wuckert Jr. said nChain had “like, 300 employees at it for the better part of a decade”, fewer now, which is his estimate[3].
Ownership
Wikipedia says the Ayre Group acquired a controlling interest in nChain in 2023[4]. Founding date, founders and patent counts are not verified in this wiki[4].
References
- btkBitcoin SV: Big Blocks All the Way (BTCTKVR: Forks!) [archived]
- episodeS17 E26: Calin Culianu on nChain leaving Bitcoin Cash▶ listen at 6:55:30timestamp transcript-derived, pending a listen [archived]
- episodeS17 E39: Kurt Wuckert Jr. on Calvin's investment and nChain's headcount▶ listen at 1:30:56timestamp transcript-derived, pending a listen [archived]
- secondaryWikipedia, “Calvin Ayre” [archived]