Bitcoin has strayed from its original plan of being a peer-to-peer digital cash, according to Bankymoon CEO and Centbee founder Lorien Gamaroff.<\/p>\n
Gamaroff was speaking on the Matt Brown Show, broadcast from an event in Johannesburg.<\/p>\n
The topic of the show was Bitcoin and its forks, such as Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin.<\/p>\n
YouTube “investor” Adam Meister and derivatives trader Tone Vays also spoke at the event.<\/p>\n
Gamaroff stated that Bitcoin’s reliance on second-layer solutions for scaling has detracted from its original purpose, and that Bitcoin Cash has the potential to overtake it thanks to its better design.<\/p>\n
“The narrative of Bitcoin enthusiasts has changed to investment, due to its increase in value and unusability as a currency,” said Gamaroff.<\/p>\n
“The people who start using cryptocurrencies as a payment method will choose those that are cheap, easy, and convenient,” he said.<\/p>\n
Gamaroff said using a cryptocurrency is what makes it valuable, and investing in Bitcoin now is equivalent to betting that its will implement successful scaling solutions and become usable on a large scale.<\/p>\n
Many Bitcoin backers have placed their hopes on the Lightning Network second-layer solution to solve the scaling problem, but Gamaroff said this defeats the original purpose of the cryptocurrency.<\/p>\n
“Bitcoin Core needs to tear up the whitepaper,” said Gamaroff.<\/p>\n
“With Lightning, we will bring the reliance on a trusted third-party back into the system and lose the concept of a peer-to-peer digital cash.”<\/p>\n
He added that Bitcoin’s mistake is wanting maximum decentralisation and avoiding block size increases to allow this.<\/p>\n
“You don’t need maximum decentralisation, you need sufficient decentralisation.”<\/p>\n
When cryptocurrency is used as payment for everyday purchases, merchants and businesses will be the ones running a node, as they will have the biggest interest in verifying transactions, he said.<\/p>\n
Gamaroff then backed Bitcoin Cash as a potential solution to cryptocurrency payments, stating that it is easier and cheaper to use than Bitcoin.<\/p>\n
Adam Meister and Tone Vays disagreed with this evaluation of Bitcoin, and said Bitcoin Cash was just another fork which will not last.<\/p>\n
Meister and Vays refer to the Bitcoin Cash fork as “BCash”, removing its link, in name at least, to Bitcoin.<\/p>\n
They see Bitcoin as an investment vehicle and censorship-resistant value transfer system, and lauded its potential as a store of value.<\/p>\n
“Bitcoin is a savings account and forks are crypto dividends,” said Meister.<\/p>\n
He said that each fork of the Bitcoin blockchain will be less and less effective as an investment vehicle, until they all eventually lose to Bitcoin itself.<\/p>\n
“BCash is nowhere near as decentralised as Bitcoin. I am surprised it has lasted this long,”\u00a0said Meister.<\/p>\n
Meister also shared his distaste of initial coin offerings, saying that most of them are “total scams” and he avoids them.<\/p>\n
Vays then analysed Bitcoin from an investment perspective, saying it was at a critical point and could either skyrocket or plummet.<\/p>\n
“Bitcoin is at a critical juncture, which could take us back up to new highs or down to new lows,” he said.<\/p>\n
Vays refers to all other cryptocurrencies as “altcoins”, and stated that they were not worth purchasing as a long-term investment.<\/p>\n
“I don’t think there is any other asset in the cryptocurrency market which is investment-worthy,” said Vays.<\/p>\n
“All these altcoins and all these ICOs are penny stocks.”<\/p>\n
When asked about the potential of cryptocurrencies like Ethereum, Bitcoin’s biggest competitor, Vays said the technology was useless.<\/p>\n
“Ethereum is a completely useless technology. Ethereum’s only use case is to create other versions of Ethereum, on Ethereum.”<\/p>\n
The full broadcast of the Matt Brown Show is posted below.<\/p>\n