Bitcoin Knots developer Luke Dashjr has accused major exchanges of selling 'fake bitcoins' following the Bitcoin hard fork that split his BLAKE2b chain from the network. According to reports from X. Swan, the controversy began when co-founder Yan Pritzker questioned whether Dashjr truly believed exchanges skip node operations. Dashjr responded that competent operators would never list the SHA-256 chain, stating that if they did, they wouldn't be selling fake bitcoins unless it was intentional fraud. Earlier in the thread, he called established exchanges incompetent and accused them of blindly following ex-miners out of Bitcoin, though this framing rests on his own view of which ledger counts as legitimate.
The Bitcoin hard fork permanently swapped SHA-256 for BLAKE2b, locking out every existing ASIC rig. As reported by X. Swan, miner support for the Bitcoin hard fork never materialized, with signaling for the BIP-110 fork peaking at only 2.53%, far below the required 55% threshold. Since the September 1 split, hashrate on the new chain has continued falling. No major exchange has listed the forked coin, though one small venue opened deposits under the ticker BTCB2 where bids reached $82 earlier this week. An August attempt died after two blocks, highlighting the lack of institutional support for the alternative chain.
According to X. Swan reports, Bitcoin (BTC) trades near $80,670 after a 3.83% gain in 24 hours, while the BTCB2 venue shows a bid-ask spread of 131.7%, indicating almost no genuine demand. Dashjr has labeled the SHA-256 chain 'Spamcoin' and wants exchanges to stop advertising it as Bitcoin. He resigned as chairman and CTO of mining pool OCEAN before the split and now leads CONVOY Mining. The controversy highlights the ongoing debate within the Bitcoin community about which ledger represents the legitimate Bitcoin chain.
As reported by X. Swan, Ripple's former CTO David Schwartz dismissed Dashjr's claim that spam data on the main chain is an attack on the network as nonsense. The controversy highlights the ongoing debate within the Bitcoin community about which ledger represents the legitimate Bitcoin chain. Blockstream CEO Adam Back summed up the episode, stating 'Live by the fork, die by the fork', leaving Dashjr standing almost alone in his position. Whether anyone besides his supporters keeps mining BLAKE2b will decide how long the fake bitcoins claim survives in the market.
