Hello crypto nation, I’m Kris with Exodus.io and welcome to the Exodus channel. We’re
going to take a look at Bitcoin SV also known as Bitcoin Satoshi Vision, or simply BSV.
We know there’s a lot of passion behind each bitcoin fork – Bitcoin BTC, Bitcoin
Cash BCH, Bitcoin SV BSV, and others. Our objective here isn’t to convince you which
is the real bitcoin or which one you should use. We simply want to provide the facts as
we understand them. There’s a free market of cryptocurrencies out there, and whichever
you decide to use, whichever you feel best meets your expectations and needs is ultimately
your choice. Hopefully, we can help provide some of the information that will allow you
to make an informed decision. And don’t just take our word for it. We can’t fit
everything in a short video, but we’ll do our best to provide a comprehensive and easy
to understand overview.
So what is Bitcoin SV and what makes it different from Bitcoin or Bitcoin Cash?
To understand the answer to these questions, we’re going to have to do
a bit of a history lesson.
And it all starts with the Bitcoin white paper. Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System
written by none other than Satoshi Nakamoto, the anonymous crypto revolutionary
or plural, revolutionaries.
We’re unable to say without a doubt whether Satoshi Nakamoto is one person or a group.
Many have tried to figure out who is behind the world-renowned pseudonym.
The likely suspects include developers who were involved with bitcoin in its earliest
days such as Gavin Andresen, Hal Finney, Nick Szabo, and Adam Back to name a few.
All of whom have denied being Satoshi. But there is one individual who stands out because he
has vociferously claimed to be Satoshi himself - and this man’s name is Craig Wright.
Now, we’re not here to question who is or who isn’t Satoshi Nakamoto. The only reason
we mention Craig Wright is because he happens to be the known founder of Bitcoin SV. And
for those who believe Craig Wright is Satoshi, well, they likely also believe that Bitcoin SV
is the true Bitcoin. This is important because Bitcoin SV proponents and Craig Wright
claim that BSV is the true Bitcoin maintaining the original vision of Satoshi Nakamoto.
Ok. So now that we’ve made a connection between BSV, its founder Craig Wright, and
the Bitcoin whitepaper, let’s get back to the Bitcoin White paper which states in the
title that Bitcoin is electronic cash. The idea that bitcoin is electronic cash is fundamental
to the creation of BSV or what some would say is
the restoration of bitcoin to the original protocol.
Is Bitcoin BTC electronic cash? I think most would say that if it is, it isn’t the most cost-efficient
way to transact when the network gets busy.
During the height of the bitcoin bull market, fees for sending BTC went through the roof.
And some transactions were stuck for days due to the limits of what the bitcoin network
could handle at the time.
These kinds of issues stand in the way of Bitcoin becoming electronic cash. Of course,
if you disagree, let us know in the comments why Bitcoin is the best money for day to day
spending. We’d love to hear your thoughts.
Now, to understand what happened we have to understand the limits of bitcoin’s blocks.
A bitcoin block contains all the new BTC transaction data. These transactions take up space. And
a bitcoin block, can only hold 1mb worth of data.
When a lot of transactions are trying to get through at the same time and they all can’t
fit into a block, they have to compete by paying fees. Users sending btc with high fees
are prioritized and accepted into the next block. BTC sent with low fees, will end up
waiting for… well, who knows how long.
It will ultimately depend on network traffic. So when the bitcoin network isn’t so busy,
transaction fees can be really low and anyone can send. When the network is congested, fees
for sending can get really high.
This is known as the Bitcoin scalability problem.
Without going into the Bitcoin politics of 2017, we’re going to quickly go over how
a group known as big blockers, wanted to upgrade the original bitcoin code to accommodate an
increase in the bitcoin block size.
At the time, Bitcoin Core Developers who were working on the original bitcoin code, wanted
to keep blocks where they were at 1mb in size.
However, as Bitcoin became more popular, its 1mb block size became more limiting which
lead to high transaction costs.
The big blockers wanted to increase the block side to 8mb which would allow the network
to process more transactions per block and help keep transaction fees low. This, they
said, would help bitcoin scale as mass adoption ensued. It would help bitcoin be exactly what
the white paper had laid out, electronic cash.
The two groups couldn’t agree and it lead to the creation of Bitcoin Cash. Bitcoin Cash
split from Bitcoin on August 1st, 2017. It was the very first contentious hard fork of the Bitcoin network.
We can understand a hard fork, the same way we understand an update.
The miners who agreed with the bigger block update, moved over to the updated version
of the bitcoin software on the Bitcoin Cash network.
Ok. So now we know that there’s Bitcoin and a scalability problem. And that a group
addressed the scalability problem by splitting the bitcoin code and forming Bitcoin Cash
which came with bigger block sizes. Today, Bitcoin Cash’s blocksize is 32mb.
So, where does Bitcoin SV fit in?
BSV was created from Bitcoin Cash on November 15, 2018. Basically, the same way that Bitcoin
Cash split from Bitcoin, Bitcoin SV split from Bitcoin Cash. And again, a primary issue
was scalability.
Bitcoin SV split from BCH and increased the blocksize to 128mb. And later, on July 24, 2019
the first BSV protocol update, called Quasar, increased the blocksize cap default
to a massive 2,000mb. That’s 2000 times bigger than BTC.
But it didn’t stop there, in February 2020, a protocol upgrade called Genesis removed
the default hard cap for block sizes making transaction capacity theoretically infinite
- setting the stage for enterprise use, high volume transactions that can compete with
the likes of Visa and Mastercard, and the ability to build large scale applications
on top of the BSV blockchain.
BSV is serious about creating a global payment system where merchants can accept and instantly
confirm transactions at a low cost.
Right now, merchants who accept credit card payments must pay a fee of around 2-3% per
transaction. In addition, it takes 1-3 days for the funds to actually hit the merchant’s account.
Transactions on the BSV blockchain are less than half a cent, remove the middlemen such
as credit card processors, and the funds can land in the merchant’s account in around
10 minutes - the time it takes for the network to confirm a block.
According to Bitcoin SV’s creators, BSV is a return to the original vision of Bitcoin
creator Satoshi Nakamoto.
Like bitcoin, BSV is a proof-of-work algorithm that produces new BSV coins as rewards for
miners that process transactions and validate new blocks. Every BSV block contains a cryptographic
hash of the previous block as well as transaction data for new transactions.
Affordable and fast transactions despite tons of network traffic are possible with BSV making
it an efficient peer to peer electronic cash system. Many will agree that this is a nod
back to the original Bitcoin white paper which labeled bitcoin a peer to peer electronic
cash system.
Do you think Bitcoin SV fulfils the cash role a lot better than BTC and BCH? Let us know
your preferred cryptocurrency for payments in the comments below.
And if you want to get your hands on some Bitcoin SV, download the BSV wallet by clicking
the link above. You can instantly exchange bitcoin, bitcoin cash, and many other cryptocurrencies
for BSV directly in your Exodus BSV wallet.
To see more videos about BSV, bitcoin, and crypto in general, like this video and subscribe
to the channel. Until next time, hodl on.