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Lawsuit Accuses Crypto Heavyweights Bitmain & Roger Ver of Hijacking Bitcoin Cash

Last Updated March 4, 2021 3:14 PM
P. H. Madore
Last Updated March 4, 2021 3:14 PM

A company by the name of UnitedCorp is taking a number of Bitcoin Cash actors to court today, filing documents that very clearly outline what they believe to have been a conspiracy which worked out to their detriment. UnitedCorp is short for United America Corporation, a Florida firm which works in experimental blockchain technologies including BlockchainDomes, an interesting take on mining hardware.

The heart of the suit is that the Bitcoin Cash hard fork should have been allowed to play out under the standard rules of consensus in Bitcoin Cash. They allege that Bitcoin.com’s conversion of Bitcoin (BTC) mining hardware and renting of extra hardware for the benefit of mining the Bitcoin ABC chain was an unfair practice and worked to undermine the principals of Bitcoin as a whole. A press release on the subject elucidates this further.

“UnitedCorp alleges that the use of computational hashing power that did not contribute to the network just prior and then was withdrawn shortly after the network upgrade was put in place for the sole purpose of maintaining an artificially longer chain over the existing rule sets and amounted to human manipulation for the purpose decentralizing the autonomous network and that this was orchestrated by a small group of individuals and corporations.

“UnitedCorp also alleges that a few days later on November 20th, the ABC development team planted a “poison pill” into the blockchain in the form of a “Deep Reorg Prevention” as well as other functionality in order to cement the control of the blockchain ledger. This intervention allows maintenance of control on future implementations and any related rule sets for future network upgrades.”

Bitcoin Cash Goes to Court: Documents Filed

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UnitedCorp had filed their suit paperwork at US district court in Miami at time of writing. The legal process will proceed from here. Named defendants are Roger Ver and Jihan Wu personally, Bitcoin.com, Bitmain Corporation (which seems to be racking up lawsuits as of late), and Kraken exchange, which lent its support to Bitcoin ABC from the outset.

Centralization on Trial

Point four of the filed court documents actually brings centralization to court, perhaps a first, and certainly of interest to cryptonaughts the world over.

“The market manipulation is centralizing what is intended to be a decentralized transactional system enabling the corruption of the democratic and neutral principles of the Bitcoin Cash network.”

The court will actually be asked to determine whether or not Bitcoin Cash users have a right to decentralization, and whether the actions of the named parties violated such rights. Point 46 makes plain that UnitedCorp sees Bitcoin ABC’s moves as nothing more than a power grab, and nowhere mentions the actions of Craig Wright and/or nChain. It seems the approach is to focus on the fact that the protocol split cannot be fully attributed to consensus if rented hash was required to fully enact it.

“Upon information and belief, the scheduled Bitcoin Cash network upgrade was manipulated by Defendants in an effort to artificially take control of the network blockchain moving forward.”

Read the whole court filing below. CCN.com is developing this story and is in contact with affected parties.

Bitmain Lawsuit  by CCN.com  on Scribd

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