The Controversial Bitcoin.com Wallet: Roger Ver’s BCH Maneuvering

Bitcoin.com is unquestionably one of the most popular Bitcoin websites in the entire space right now.

It’s also a website ran by Roger Ver, the firebrand OG Bitcoiner who’s swung his support behind Bitcoin Cash and has made no secret about his efforts to raise the alt-Bitcoin up into dominance.

Naturally, supporters of BCH have rallied around Ver, regarding him as a vanguard presence in their community.

Proponents of the incumbent BTC chain, however, have been increasingly enraged at one of BTC’s most vocal and high-profile critics.

And, in recently making Bitcoin Cash the official “Bitcoin” of Bitcoin.com’s wallet service, many Ver detractors have been calling the move an assault against the Bitcoin community as a whole.

Let’s bring you up to speed on the contentiousness.

The Bitcoin.com domain has long been a thorn for many in BTC

Even going back to the earliest days of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto and other early adopters reference the domain squatter who was holding onto Bitcoin.com circa 2010.

Nakamoto referred to the site as “unrelated” and empty when he first began working on BTC, and other commenters in that now famous BitcoinTalk thread fruitlessly discussed how to buy the address.

Fast forward to 2014, at which point Ver was able to purchase the .com domain.

Fast forwarding further still to 2017, wherein Ver’s threw his chips in with the 8MB Bitcoin Cash chain in the Bitcoin scaling debates that have flared up like never before this year and that resulted in the August 1st BCH hard fork in the first place.

Bitcoin.com is Ver’s gig – many wish it wasn’t – Image via Bitcoin.com

And it’s been Ver’s impassioned support for BCH and his ownership of what would appear superficiallly to be the flagship website of the BTC community that’s created the underlying dynamic of the current controversy.

BTC Users Decry the Switch as Confusing, Dangerous

So what’s happened this week is that it’s come to light Bitcoin.com is defaulting their wallets to BCH, not BTC as it has previously done.

This switch has caused a firestorm of controversy in the r/Bitcoin subreddit, with veteran users concerned that uninitiated Bitcoiners will mistakenly send BTC to their Bitcoin.com BCH address, resulting in potential widespread losses of funds.

u/Renben9 aptly expressed the dominant sentiment of their peers:

In any case, this app-behavior is unacceptable. Be it intentional or not, it’s highly confusing with a very high potential for loss of funds. I regard this app as malware and it should be treated as such, hence why I won’t let it even near my system.

Now, stepping back a bit, it’s clear that Bitcoin.com’s wallet isn’t bona fide malware, but concerns over botched transactions resulting from confusion can certainly be appreciated.

At the same time, Ver is the current owner of the site and will continue to use it as he pleases.

From his perspective, he’s acting quite rationally. He wants BCH to be the new #1 cryptocurrency, and that can’t happen unless it’s billed as the #1 cryptocurrency.

That’s what Ver’s wallet maneuver is all about – to the joy of r/btc and the ire of r/Bitcoin.