Behind Yang Haipo's Fork of "BCH": A War Against Bitcoin ABC
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Behind Yang Haipo's Fork of "BCH": A War Against Bitcoin ABC
BCH supporters said the community division is just a minor issue, and BCHN will not fork.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsToday, Yang Haipo, CEO of ViaBTC mining pool, posted on Weibo stating, "BCH has suffered long under ABC; it's time for a change," suggesting a potential fork of BCH.
Yang Haipo's recent statement primarily opposes ABC and its lead developer Amury Sechet, especially regarding disagreements over the new difficulty adjustment algorithm scheduled for November.
A core aspect of this upgrade involves improving the Difficulty Adjustment Algorithm (DAA). To address unstable block times on the BCH network, key development teams like BCHN, along with developers Jonathan Toomim, Karol Trzeszczkowski, Tom Zander, and others, have discussed solutions for dynamic difficulty adjustment (DAA). They believe one feasible approach is the EMA algorithm. The main advantage of EMA is smoothing out the difficulty curve—when applied to BCH, it stabilizes block intervals within a predictable range, reducing the likelihood of blocks being mined too quickly or slowly. This helps equalize earnings between high-frequency mining pools ("shotgun pools") and regular miners, minimizing the influence of shotguns on BCH block generation speed.
Additionally, the ASERT algorithm, reintroduced by BCH developer jtoomim, is also considered a viable solution to the DAA issue. Although based on different principles, both approaches share the feature of increasing weight as blocks approach difficulty adjustments, making the network’s response to hash power fluctuations more timely and eliminating advantages for shotgun pools, thereby narrowing the revenue gap between them and ordinary miners.
According to a July survey by BCHNode, most of the Chinese Bitcoin Cash community—including major mining pools, exchanges, key figures, and holders—supports changing the DAA in the November BCH upgrade. Results showed: 1) Among five major mining pools—Antpool, ViaBTC, BTC.TOP, BTC.com, and Huobi Pool—three support modifying the DAA. 2) Among exchanges Huobi, Binance, CoinEx, and Gate.io, three support the DAA change, while one remains neutral.
However, these proposals have been opposed by BCH developer Amury Sechet, who instead introduced a proposal called Grasberg. Many in the community argue that this proposal hasn't undergone sufficient peer review by the majority of Bitcoin Cash nodes, and Bitcoin ABC has not provided further test data to support it, prompting calls for the community to reject Amury’s proposal.
BCH developer jtoomim criticized the Bitcoin ABC team for unilaterally pushing the new dynamic difficulty adjustment (DAA) algorithm, Grasberg, which ignores critical facts. He pointed out that Grasberg would alter BCH's token issuance schedule, reducing total supply by 11.11% and slowing block production by 12.5% over the next 6.5 years—an arbitrary figure chosen without explanation by the Bitcoin ABC team. During previous BCH DAA meetings, the Grasberg plan was rejected by most developers. It appears to be supported only by the Bitcoin ABC team, and if they attempt to implement Grasberg during the November upgrade, it could result in a BCH chain split.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin replied on Twitter to a user expressing confusion about why the BCH team cares so much about the details of the difficulty adjustment algorithm. He said, “I optimistically thought that after CSW’s exit, BCH development would improve—that was definitely one of my worst predictions.” Blockstream co-founder Gregory Maxwell later voiced support for BCH developer jtoomim’s position.
Regarding this incident, BCH supporter Hayden Otto said in an interview that the division within the BCH community is merely a “minor matter.” However, he added that “enemy agents disguised as BCH supporters” are using the difficulty adjustment algorithm (DAA) as a pretext to create chaos and spread division. Despite existing disagreements, Otto believes a BCHN fork is unlikely, as the BCHN software has not been widely adopted by miners, meaning its supporters won’t secure a majority vote to pass their preferred changes during the upgrade.
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