November 2018 marked another pivotal moment for the crypto industry with the creation of Bitcoin Satoshi Vision(BSV) which quickly rose to the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap. The new crypto-asset was the result of a bitter technical and ideological battle between two factions of the Bitcoin Cash(BCH) community which ended up in one of the most aggressive hard forks in the history of crypto markets. During that time, both groups drew passionate and very vocal followers which certainly helped BSV gain certain prominence. However, ten months after the hard-fork, blockchain datasets reveal some very interesting insights about the health of both BCH and BSV. The IntoTheBlock platform recently added full support for BSV and I thought it would be a good idea to look at the data in comparison to BCH.

The Origins of BSV

BCH came into existence in August 2017 as a result of a debate over the block size of the Bitcoin network. Just over a year into its existence, BCH experienced the same challenges that triggered its creation when the community split in two over some proposed changes to the network. On August 20, 2018, Bitcoin Cash Adjustable Blocksize Cap (Bitcoin Cash ABC, BCH ABC), which at the time was the largest software client for the blockchain, announced a hard fork slated for November 15, 2018. A part of the announcement read:

“A new opcode called OP_CHECKDATASIG that improves the BCH scripting language to permit the validation of messages from outside the blockchain.

The introduction of canonical transaction ordering.

Several minor technical fixes and improvements.”

A faction within the Bitcoin Cash community, led by Craig Wright and Calvin Ayre, disagreed vociferously with these proposed technical updates. Wright was particularly vocal against the need for smart contracts while Ayre didn’t think miners will support canonical transaction ordering. Their group proposed to restore “the original Satoshi protocol” by changing the BCH structure. Specifically, the plan involves entirely overwriting the network scripts of Bitcoin ABC and increasing the block size of BCH from 32MB to a maximum of 128MB to elevate network capacity and scale. The result was a hard fork and the creation of BSV on November 15, 2018.

What followed after the fork was one of the craziest episodes in the history of crypto-markets with both parties racing to create blocks in their respective blockchains. Both groups shifted some of their mining power in the Bitcoin network to their blockchains creating artificial pressure on the price of BTC. While, the BCH ABC was ultimately successful and gained support of major exchanges, BSV was able to survive and was eventually adopted by several crypto markets. For the last ten months, both BCH and BSV have evolved as separate blockchains gaining relevant market positions. How do they compare now?

What Does Blockchain Data Tell Us About BCH vs. BSV

From financials to the composition of the network, there are several dimensions on which we can compare BCH and BSV. Let’s explore some of the most revealing insights that come from analyzing the blockchain datasets of BCH and BSV respectively.

Both Networks are Growing at a Similar Rate

IntoTheBlock’s Address analysis reveals that the growth patterns on both BCH and BSV are relatively similar with BSV growing a tiny bit faster.

Source: http://intotheblock.com

BSV is Processing More Transactions

On a somewhat surprising statistics, IntoTheBlock’s Transaction Analysisshows that BSV is processing quite a bit more transactions than the BCH network.

Source: http://intotheblock.com

Source: http://intotheblock.com

Both Networks are Evenly Distributed Geographically

IntoTheBlock’s East vs. West analysis shows that both BCH and BSV are well adopted in Asia and the rest of the world. In the case of BSV, the balance is almost 50–50.

Source: http://intotheblock.com

As an Investment, Both BCH and BSV Have Been Incredibly Profitable but BSV Takes the Crown for Now

This is not exactly a surprise, the short history and the recent price spikes on BSV has made it almost impossible to loose money with it and BCH hasn’t been bad either. IntoTheBlock’s In-Out Money analysis reveals that both crypto-assets have resulted incredibly profitable for investors.

Source: http://intotheblock.com

Large Transactions are More Common on BCH

Large transactions (over $100,000.00) could be a sign of price rallies. IntoTheBlock’s Large Transaction analysis shows that, while the BSV network has more transaction activity, BCH has a disproportionally higher number of large transactions.

Source: http://intotheblock.com

BCH is Way More Correlated to BTC

Given that Bitcoin was the origin of both BCH and BSV, it makes sense to evaluate which crypto-asset is more correlated to BTC in terms of price. IntoTheBlock’s BTC Correlation analysis reveals that BCH has much higher degrees of correlation to BTC than BSV.

Source: http://intotheblock.com

New Money is Investing in Both Crypto-Assets but BSV Seems to be Growing Faster

New investors are a good indicator of future price rallies as they tend to be more active. IntoTheBlock’s Traders analysis tracks new money inflows into a crypto-asset and shows that, although both networks are showing similar levels of new money traction, the inflows into BSV have been growing while BCH’s have been declining. However, the volume of new money in BCH seems to be higher than BSV which makes up a really interesting dynamic.

Source: http://intotheblock.com

Both BCH and BSV are relatively new assets in the crypto space and both count with really passionate followers. As a result, a lot of the news and social media activity around BCH and BSV expressed really biased opinions that can cloud the judgement of investors. Looking at the data reveals a different picture from what you typically would infer from mainstream media. I hope this analysis helps you better understand BCH and BSV and get a different perspective about what data points are relevant in order to make an investment decision in these assets.