Bitcoin SV President Hits Out at Binance as Former Critic Becomes Top Miner
Jimmy Nguyen, Bitcoin Association President (Bitcoin Association)
Another day, another spat in the crypto space…
The president of the Bitcoin Association, the entity behind Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV), has accused Binance of cherry picking its relationships with the cryptocurrency project after news came out earlier this week that the exchange’s new mining pool was now the single biggest verifier on the BSV protocol.
In a statement to CoinDesk, Jimmy Nguyen said it was a “little too ironic” that Binance, which delisted BSV from its main exchange in April 2019 and has been critical of the cryptocurrency, still considered BSV economically worthwhile to mine.
“These actions speak far louder than the words: Binance spoke in April 2019 when it delisted BSV by saying the coin did not meet its supposed “standards”; the truth is BSV does meet Binance’s standards – for generating revenue from BSV when it chooses,” Nguyen said.
It emerged earlier this week that Binance Pool – which only launched at the end of April – had become BSV’s biggest miner. On a 7-day moving average, Binance Pool made up just under 20% of the network’s total hashrate at press time.
About a year ago, Binance, along with several other exchanges, including Kraken and ShapeShift, delisted BSV, in protest over the behavior of Craig Wright, one of BSV’s leading advocates, who has claimed without evidence to be bitcoin’s creator, Satoshi Nakamoto.
Wright had publicly threatened to sue anyone who called him a fraud. In response, many, including Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (“CZ”) took to Twitter to do just that.
CZ further called on the BSV community to kick Wright out of its ecosystem: “Anyone who supports BSV from a tech perspective should be attacking the fraudulent Craig Wright, who is poisoning YOUR community, and not attack the rest of the world.”
Earlier this week, CoinGeek, the cryptocurrency news site owned by Calvin Ayre, BSV’s dreadlocked billionaire backer and Wright supporter, suggested Binance had become BSV’s biggest miner so it could try and exert control over its price and to protect its own Binance Coin.
Disclosure
The leader in blockchain news, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups.