NIST Paper Claims Bitcoin Cash Is “Technically” the Real Bitcoin

The different opinions on Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash have been well-documented across various media channels. Most people remain confident Bitcoin is the main chain, but a lot of BCH fans think things are the other way around. A new draft paper from the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology claims that Bitcoin Cash is indeed the original chain, whereas the coin we now know as Bitcoin is considered to be a fork. It’s an interesting development, although one that isn’t entirely wrong.

NIST Makes an Interesting Statement

It is evident there are tons of people who feel Bitcoin Cash reflects Satoshi Nakamoto’s true vision of a peer-to-peer decentralized cryptocurrency. While that may or may not be true, no one can deny Bitcoin itself isn’t exactly in the best of places right now. Its transaction fees only came down this weekend after multiple weeks of increasing costs to send money across the Bitcoin network. Moreover, transaction times are back to normal as well, which is a more than welcome change as well.

The new document from NIST covers several cryptocurrencies. It touches upon various concepts associated with cryptocurrencies such as their mining algorithms, how the technology works, and so forth. It was unavoidable that this paper would also touch upon the differences between Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash. Even though the latter currency only came to market a few months ago, no one can deny BCH has had a big impact on the market already.

What is most intriguing is that NIST claims Bitcoin Cash is the true version of Bitcoin, whereas the BTC chain is technically a fork. Opinions like these have become far more prevalent in the world of cryptocurrency over the past few months. There is a genuine dislike for how Bitcoin operates right now, whereas Bitcoin Cash seems to have all of the better cards right now. Faster transactions, generally low fees, and a network that is seemingly less influenced by political agendas are some of its selling points for a lot of people.

Even so, it is a bit unclear why NIST refers to Bitcoin Cash as the real Bitcoin, even though it is not the most valuable cryptocurrency nor does it have the most mining hashpower. One could argue Bitcoin Cash is the longer chain of the two, which would be absolutely correct. Then again, it is a matter of semantics as to which is the real Bitcoin in its current form. Debates like these hardly ever end well, for obvious reasons. The activation of SegWit on the network has split the community into competing camps, a fact which is often held against the Bitcoin Core developers.

Even though NIST considers Bitcoin Cash to be the real Bitcoin, there is no indication that its opinion will have any major impact on the market. The value of BCH has not gone down all that much in recent weeks, but it has not appreciated much either. Now is a good time for Bitcoin Cash to overtake Bitcoin and stake its claim, but it seems the market has no intention of doing anything along those lines.

It will take some time to overtake Bitcoin as the world’s leading cryptocurrency, especially when it comes to market cap. Bitcoin Cash would need to see its value per coin increase eightfold to make that happen. At the same time, the price per Bitcoin cannot appreciate, or the uphill battle will become even steeper for Bitcoin Cash. This particular document is intriguing for many reasons, but to the general public, Bitcoin is still the main chain and Bitcoin Cash is an altcoin.