Should @Bitcoin Be Removed From Twitter For Shilling BCH?

Nobody controls Bitcoin, in the sense that there is no CEO of Bitcoin. It is a decentralized, open source technology, free from copyright, trademarks or any owner. Some people may try to steer it, manipulate it or fork it, but it is like the internet in that it is a tool used by anyone who wants to. Some countries ban it and that is their prerogative locally but besides that, it is free.

There have been several hard forks of Bitcoin over the years, like Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash, where code has been tweaked and altered to form a new branch of the blockchain, like a genetic mutation that has been altered to create a hybridization – the same but different.

This is like turning milk into yoghurt.

You simply take some milk, boil it and add a very little yoghurt culture and the entire batch becomes yoghurt overnight. It’s easy and it was all milk originally but now the pot no longer contains any milk, it only contains yoghurt.

There are numerous lookalikes to Bitcoin or wannabes that have even taken the name, like Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Cash SV (BSV) – or Bitcoin Gold (BTG), Bitcoin Diamond (BCD), Bitcoin Private (BTCP), Bitcoin Plus (XBC), Bitcoin Planet (BTPL), Lightning Bitcoin (LBTC), etc.

Take a look at CMC and you will find them – I counted 28 tokens with the name - but they are not Bitcoin.

So when a Twitter account calls itself @Bitcoin, you expect it to be that of the original, one and only Bitcoin. But it isn’t, not any more, not by the looks of its tweets. In fact it looks like the wannabe usurper Bitcoin Cash instead. The @Bitcoin Twitter handle, with its 930 000 followers has recently become seriously controversial among the crypto Twittershere due to now regularly tweeting not about Bitcoin but about Bitcoin Cash. Some time back the @Bitcoin account tweeted about its change in opinion regarding the original “Bitcoin Core” (BTC) – as it’s called – and showed a preference for BCH instead.

This was back in 2017 already, when BTC wasn’t scaling well and transaction fees were spiking. Around that time BTC enthusiasts changed their promotion of BTC from being “peer-to-peer cash” to a “store of value”. It is of course both and with the launch of the Lightning Network that has all changed for the better.

Nevertheless, the @Bitcoin Twitter account is still run by some BCH enthusiast and not a BTC maximalist anymore. And not everyone knows the difference, especially not newcomers who may easily mistake the one for the other.

Imagine buying the one because it is way cheaper and thinking you have the other, only to find you have been misguided all along. It wouldn’t be fair. They are miles apart in price and value. Well, the promoting of BCH on the @Bitcoin account has really infuriated some maximalists who have gone as far as demanding that the account be banned, blocked or taken down, just like the @Internet account was once before.

No one can claim to be speaking for something as abstract and universal as “the Internet”. Similarly, no one person can claim to be speaking or tweeting for Bitcoin, particularly when it isn’t Bitcoin, but a clone.

Some Bitcoin enthusiasts have even called upon the CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, to ban the account. @Jack is a known Bitcoin enthusiast and an investor in the Lightning Network technology that is currently facilitating BTC speed and efficiency. The controversy further evolved when an analyst for Messari, the professional crypto analysis and research website, sent @Jack a private message asking him to ban the @Bitcoin account, to which @Jack replied “What do you recommend we do with it?”

Nothing wrong there but when the analyst made the private answer public, it stirred up yet another concern that he was being unethical by sharing a private message like that. It’s a tough life when you’re famous or a public figure. Every step you take, every Tweet you make and the world is watching you. The publicising of the private tweet was subsequently deleted.

Ironically the @Bitcoin account was curiously totally banned last year already but then returned under a lesser shadow ban, so its reach is far less than it originally was. And this is understandable since the very same account named @Bitcoin was actually trashing Bitcoin (BTC) and praising BCH. The fact is that whatever your technological preferences, BCH is not BTC, not in the public eye, not on the trade platforms or exchanges and not anywhere on Twitter. They may have a similar name and come from the same source but they are different.

There is no way that you can use yoghurt in you tea or coffee like you can use milk. There is no way the son is the same as his father. They are two different animals. And that is the bottom line. So it is totally understandable that BTC maximalists are concerned about the @Bitcoin Twitter account.

The uncontrolled and free nature of Bitcoin, as released by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009, is that there is nobody who can come and claim to control it and make these sorts of decisions for its Twitter account. Anyone can claim whatever they like regarding the censorship-resistant platform. So it has become a contentious grey area. The debate as to which is the real Bitcoin is only part of the controversy now.

The other part is the freedom of speech regarding Bitcoin on Twitter. There are BCH fans out there that actually endorse the @Bitcoin account to such a degree that when the controversy arose last week, many of them went and changed their Twitter handle or icon to the @bitcoin icon, in a gesture much like the @Hodlonaut saga just days before.

They even launched a #WeAreAllBitcoin meme as an act of protest.

I guess if I launched a Twitter account for myself called @Potus (president of the US) because I like the nickname, there is nobody who can stop me. How about @Jesus? This is the same logic now being used about the validity of the @Bitcoin account. They say it is a private account and the owner can say what they like because Bitcoin is open source and free from copyright.

They may have a point but it still begs the question of what about the misinformation or misrepresentation going on?

To the newcomer, BCH is being promoted as if it was BTC and that is the real cause for concern. It’s too late now to debate that the one is valid and not the other as they now both exist side by side like any hard fork at the dinner table. But for the sake of the masses some clarification may need to be there, otherwise it looks like a scam, posing as something else and tricking unsuspecting newcomers to the industry.

What do you think?

Is it alright for BCH to use the @Bitcoin account name and pose as BTC, or should they desist and use their own actual name.

Leave your opinions and let us know what you think in the comments below.