Angel investor Roger Ver has placed a $4 million bet that the coins on the SegWit2x blockchain will ultimately be worth more than coins on the original bitcoin blockchain following the proposed November hard fork.
It’s difficult to remember a time when the bitcoin community was not embroiled in a debate about the appropriate way to scale the bitcoin network. That debate has taken numerous forms but currently centers around the disagreement between supporters of SegWit2x and supporters of Bitcoin Core. The war of words — and hashpower — began shortly after the New York Agreement and has escalated throughout the year as November, the scheduled date for the SegWit2x hard fork, approaches.
Litecoin creator Charlie Lee has been one of SegWit2x’s most vociferous opponents. Friday, he put his money where his mouth — and keyboard — is, initiating a chain of events that have ultimately resulted in Roger Ver placing a $4 million bet on the success of SegWit2x.
The saga began when Lee publicly challenged SegWit2x developer Jeff Garzik, ShapeShift CEO Erik Voorhees, and Digital Currency Group CEO Barry Silbert, all SegWit2x proponents, to trade him 250 BTC from the original bitcoin blockchain for 250 BTC from the SegWit2x blockchain following the hard fork. At current exchange rates, this wager equates to more than $1 million.
Lets do a public 1:1 trade. My Segwit2x 250 BTC for your non-2x 250 BTC after Nov HF. No HF, no trade. @jgarzik @ErikVoorhees@barrysilbert
As of the time of writing, neither Garzik, Voorhees, nor Silbert had responded to Lee’s challenge. However, Roger Ver, a New York Agreement signatory who has embraced bitcoin cash, told Lee he would “gladly accept” the offer. “Deal!,” Lee replied.
Why wasn’t invited? I’ll gladly accept! You are economically illiterate if you think restricting the supply of block space is a good thing. https://twitter.com/SatoshiLite/status/913807452197478400 …
But Roger Ver did not stop there. His tweet unleashed a flurry of similar offers, three of which he accepted. As he announced on reddit, he will trade 1,000 non-SegWit2x BTC (worth more than $4 million) to Charlie Lee, BitGo CTO Ben Davenport, Chaincode Labs co-founder Alex Morcos, and crypto economist Tuur Demeester, each of whom will purportedly stake 250 coins from the SegWit2x blockchain.
Time will tell which of them live(s) to regret that decision.
