Bitcoin (BTC), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and Bitcoin SV (BSV). How on earth did we get to having three vastly different projects laying claim to the Bitcoin name? In episode 1 of our new podcast series, Bitstocks Product & Sales Manager, Emmanuel Alamu and CFO, Elia Yousif set out to explore the history, ideologies and economics that underpin the different Bitcoin node implementations.

In part 1 of this episode, Emmanuel and Elia take us through historical events and the narratives that developed along the way. The pair take us back to the very beginning of the block size debate, when Mike Hearn proposed an 8MB block size limit in 2014 and ended up ostracised from the community. Moving on to 2015, we look at the initial proposal of SegWit, a protocol change that would radically alter the way transactions would be processed on the BTC network. By 2016, the Bitcoin project is split between those vying for the adoption of SegWit, and those rallying for the block size to be increased to 8MB. The first hard fork follows as result, with the birth of Bitcoin Cash at the end of 2017. A little over a year later, a civil war erupts within Bitcoin Cash, a hash war takes place, and Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (Bitcoin SV) is born.

To an outsider, the different factions of Bitcoin might seem absurd. But, by focussing our attention on the different ideologies (socialism, anarchism, capitalism) and economic incentive schemes of each, Elia and Emmanuel show us there’s more than trivial tribalism brewing beneath the surface.