What Is Bitcoin Satoshi’s Vision (BSV)?
A fork of a fork. BSV is the result of a fork of Bitcoin Cash, which in turn was a fork of the original Bitcoin.
The goal? Execute the vision first issued by Satoshi in the Bitcoin whitepaper: a scalable, stable, peer-to-peer cash system.
To do this, they needed to allow the network to process tens of thousands of transactions per second while keeping transaction fees affordable enough for microtransactions to be worthwhile. Removing technical restrictions on the blockchain should have made this doable.
What makes Bitcoin SV (BSV) unique?
Most of the time, we see a fork in a network to make improvements. Bitcoin is like gold, it has special properties, but is by no means perfect. What happens is, enthusiasts take Bitcoin and instead of trying to create an alternative, they take Bitcoin and turn it into something it’s not, and oftentimes it creates a warped product that half resembles Bitcoin and half resembles a pile of poop.
BSV supporters claim it’s different as its aim is to follow the original Bitcoin whitepaper. They argue that BSV is necessary because over time, Bitcoin has become a store of value asset instead of a scalable, usable means of cash. This is because its key properties of limited supply and scarcity make it more like gold than cash. The goal for BSV is to act as the cash bitcoin was “meant” to be.
Due to its unbounded block size, BSV can scale to meet the demands of any application and payment network without resorting to layer two solutions.
In 2021, the BSV network mined the world’s first gigabyte level blocks – reaching up to 2 GBs in August 2021. For comparison, 2 GBs is 2000 times the 1MB block cap of the Bitcoin network.
With constant development and testing of the new software, the BSV infrastructure team has already demonstrated the BSV network’s ability to handle up to 100,000 transactions per second and expects it to exceed that in the near future. With that capability, BSV could become a worthy rival to the likes of VISA.
The platform is also very attractive to developers who began on other blockchains and have now hit roadblocks because of the scaling issues discussed. This has also meant it’s an inviting entry point for institutions looking to dabble in the blockchain space.
The Tokenomics and Security of BSV
Just like Bitcoin, BSV is secured by the proof of work consensus mechanism as this was the mechanism described by Nakamoto in the Bitcoin whitepaper.
The tokenomics is also the same. There is a maximum of 21 million BSV coins in circulation. Fresh coins from this circulation are distributed to BSV miners via block rewards, which they earn by securing the network. Block rewards are cut in half roughly every four years in what’s known as ‘halving’.
