BitcoinSV (BSV) hit the headlines in April after a number of prominent cryptocurrency exchanges including Binance, Kraken and ShapeShift delisted the alt-currency. There's been strong sentiment—both positive and negative—from a variety of crypto market participants in the aftermath, as the digital currency industry continues its struggle to be taken seriously and gain mainstream acceptance.
BSV is the result of a contentious hard fork of the Bitcoin Cash blockchain. Australian computer scientist Craig Wright and Calvin Ayer were behind the hard fork. BSV raised Bitcoin Cash‘s block size limit from 32MB to 128MB. Wright has also claimed he's actually the mysterious Bitcoin founder, Satoshi Nakamoto. That, however, has been widely discredited. It's just one of many controversies swirling around the now-debased token.
Myriad Reasons, Lots of Drama
What triggered the delistings? Many believe the primary reason had more to do with the number of exchange CEOs who personally dislike Wright. Some feel this was borne out when Binance founder Changpeng Zhao took to Twitter in mid April to call Wright out. But others tweeted their disagreement arguing "An attack against one is an attack against all." Still, on April 15th, Binance officially announced the delisting on their site.
Kraken, in its delisting announcement the following day, attributed their decision to other factors:
"The team behind BitcoinSV have engaged in behavior completely antithetical to everything we at Kraken and the wider crypto community stands for. It started with fraudulent claims, escalating to threats and legal action, with the BSV team suing a number of people speaking out against them."
Jimmy Nguyen, global ambassador for BSV responded:
“It’s absolutely ridiculous that any business, let alone a cryptocurrency exchange, would use Twitter polls to make a serious business decision like delisting an asset in a way that could harm the value of millions of investors worldwide.”
The crux of the issue, from his perspective, explains Cyril Alvarez Adriaansen, head of Blockchain at collaborative banking platform 2gether, isn't personal feelings between industry players. Rather, the very principle of the centralized exchange goes against the decentralized promises of blockchain technology.
“This should worry both market participants and regulators regardless of their feelings towards the leadership of Bitcoin SV. I believe it is critical that exchanges be held to high standards of neutrality and impartiality. Until regulation catches up, market participants should demand that centralized exchanges establish a self-regulatory framework surrounding listing/delisting of coins, fake trading volume, and many other issues that currently plague the industry.”
As well, the success of a coin should not be dependent on whether it's listed or delisted, says Pedro Anderson, COO and co-founder of Winding Tree. However, Anderson stresses he's not supportive of tokens—and founders—that are dishonest.
"It's a pay to play game with exchanges so it doesn't reflect the need or viability of the coin. But in this case, it does seem the only logical action not just on Binance's part but other exchanges, such as Kraken, who've done the same. The guy is a charlatan and it's a joke that something like this could be listed in the first place."
Another contingent within the cryptosphere sees Bitcoin as the only legitimate cryptocurrency. Kadan Stadelmann, CTO of Komodo, a multi-chain platform, believes Bitcoin forks are largely controversial because most represent existential threats to Bitcoin’s (BTC) existence.
“For many of the most notable Bitcoin forks, success is a zero-sum game, with the idea being to dethrone Bitcoin and outright replace it, eventually becoming the so-called “true” Bitcoin. Despite the ongoing fights to challenge Bitcoin’s dominance however, it is important to remember that forks can live alongside their ancestors. Forks can not only coexist, but they can symbiotically thrive so long as their value propositions are sufficiently different.”
Given the powerful position Binance's Zhao holds within the cryptoverse, Matthew Finestone, director at Loopring, the open-source protocol for building decentralized exchanges, views the BSV-Binance delisting as an interesting move that also highlights some of the current issues plaguing the asset class.
“The drama and nonsense around BCH-SV have been deleterious for the ecosystem. So while I support the delisting, it’s not lost on me that this mirrors the unilateral gatekeeping crypto is meant to neuter. While I recognize the seemingly resounding sentiment in favor of this move in the crypto community, it could, in fact, be argued that it only amplifies the need for truly open exchanges.”
Others see the action as completely laudable. Gordon Chen, CEO and co-founder of Neutral, an open financial protocol building a suite of financial products on-chain, thinks the delisting shows that the crypto industry holds players accountable.
“Developing the crypto sphere into a mature, credible space, and attracting institutional investment and adoption, requires us to filter out actors who may have a negative impact on the overall reputation of our industry. The lessons from what happened make it clear that while this industry is still relatively small, it intends to grow into something great and make way for positive change.”