BSV delisted: Not wrong but far from right!
Most of the readers would be aware about what transpired between Craig White (CW) and CZ. For those who don’t here is a quick recap, Craig White tried to sue few twitter handles like Holdonaut for defamation for calling him fraud and a fake Satoshi etc. Legal notices were sent in a classic case of bullying by CW. However, Changpeng Zhao (CZ), CEO of Binance stepped in and threatened to delist Bitcoin SV — the crypto led by Craig White, if the bullying doesn’t stop. Legal notices were sent to more handles from Craig White and the crypto community egged on Binance to delist Bitcoin SV. Binance then delisted Bitcoin SV.
Before we begin, lets make it clear that we are not trying to justify what Binance or CW did. The point of this article is to share a different perspective, a perspective that has been lost amongst the noise of the cheerleaders and the haters.
Looking at it from the user’s perspective, there are millions of Bitcoin SV in circulation and most of the present users holding on to these coins have received them purely by virtue of holding on to BCH during the fork.
The delisting has led the price of Bitcoin SV to fall from $85 at the beginning of the month to $60 as we write. Over $100 million has been wiped out from the market cap of Bitcoin SV.
We don’t need to spell out who has been the collateral damage.
There is a certain admiration for the exchanges for taking a courageous stand against bullying but there should have been a more pragmatic approach to avoid collateral damage. There are many questions that are being raised by the crypto community:
Was this the only resort?
Why was BSV supported by the exchanges during the fork especially when claims of CW were already exposed by then and his intentions questionable with the Hash wars?
Could they have done something different? How about requesting all media houses and conferences to boycott CW and team for a start?
Follow that up with providing legal assistance and financial support to every party that has been sent legal notices by CW and team, that would have been a much bigger statement. Remember the crypto community has raised $20k for Holdonaut legal cost!
In hindsight, it is not difficult to come up with multiple actions that could have been taken to target the guilty party and leave the wider community unharmed.
Though it is easier to justify the exchanges by juxtaposing their actions with those of CW and team, what we are basically implying is that two wrongs make it right. This can be a one off moment or it can set a dangerous precedence whereby exchange owners are emboldened to list/delist tokens based on their personal preferences or vendetta.
This behaviour goes against the very foundation of the inclusive financial society that crypto aims to create and is the personification of the existing financial system which it intends to replace.
Its admirable standing up to bullying but the exchanges do have a certain responsibility towards their users and despite personal grievances should hold a neutral ground.
As a community, lets hope we don’t visit these crossroads again and if we do then at least for the sake of the users, better sense prevails.
