The Case for Bitcoin Cash (BCH) in Commerce.

For me it is clear BCH provides more utility than BTC.

BCH tx fees & times are an order of magnitude quicker and cheaper than on BTC -- The de facto rebuttal here is that those advantages come at the cost of decreased decentralization (maybe even security, with some re-allocation in the current availability of hashpower).

The main counter argument to the current state of the BTC protocol is that lightning / 3rd-party integrations via segwit or segwit2x will allow for quicker txs and lower txs costs, while remaining more decentralized.

A research paper by one of the main individuals behind BCH points out why segwit is not a sustainable solution: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2993315 . While it may be bias, there are similar articles and sentiments around this claim that raise interesting points, if proven to be true.

As for the decentralization claim, both BTC/BCH have the majority of their mining activity split by a handful of parties so if either chain has additional decentralization it would probably be marginal at best.

In the end, commerce will be drawn to the chain which provides the most utility. When legitimate businesses are given the choice between increased decentralization or significantly reduced tx time and cost, it is safe to assume they would choose the latter.

This could be why Amazon for example has yet to accept bitcoin, why would consumers ever pay 50$ and wait hours to make a transaction with BTC when they can use a credit card and have it done instantly at close to no cost to them.

I think the point some investors fail to realize when comparing BTC/BCH is that BTC aims to be a decentralized store of value while the BCH will strive to facilitate commerce while attempting to maintain a reasonable level of decentralization.

(Disclaimer: I'm not for-or-against either BTC/BCH, I just believe they are inherently suited to serve different purposes in the long run.)

What are your thoughts? Leave a comment below.