While Some Rejoice Binance Removing BSV, Others Question How Much Power Exchanges Have

The recently ignited debate over whether Craig Wright is the actual Satoshi Nakamoto has spurred many other discussions. The aggressive actions that Wright took to offer a bounty to determine the true identity of his antagonist, Hodlonaut, proved to be the last straw for several exchanges.

Binance, along with ShapeShift, both chose to delist the coin. However, a new concern arises with these actions – the power that exchanges hold. As ShapeShift and Binance chose to delist, and Kraken has been toying with the idea of delisting with a poll on Twitter, Bitcoin SV is not doing well.

According to CoinMarketCap, the last 24 hours have shown to have a loss of 12.21% in the last 24 hours alone, which has knocked it out of the top 10 coins by market cap down to #14. The current value is $54.91, though the price only six days ago was $84.02, meaning that it has only taken that much time to lose nearly 35% of its value.

All of these changes are following a series of #delistBSV tweets, spurred by Wright’s calls for an apology from Hodlonaut for his statements that he is a “fraud” for even claiming that he is the creator of Bitcoin. Rather than the community splitting apart to find the identity of this user in the way that Wright probably thought they would, the group banded together, changing their display names to match the now-deactivated Hodlonaut account.

Many major names in the cryptocurrency industry have since come forward with statements that Wright is simply not the true identity of Satoshi, with Changpeng Zhao being the boldest in proposing delisting first.

As a result of the claims, Wright is writing out legal notices to even more people, including Peter McCormack, who is the host of WhatBitcoinDid, and Vitalik Buterin, the creator of Ethereum. Still, neither has changed their stance, as McCormack replied to the notice by saying that Wright is “definitely not” Satoshi.

Even though the majority of crypto proponents have stood behind the delisting of Bitcoin SV, there’s some that have brought up the impact that these changes have on the whole market.

Nic Carter, who co-founded Coinmetrics, took to Twitter to speak on these recent events. He commented that, considering how fraud appears to be the catalyst for delisting, “almost everything” should have the same fate.

If fraud from the chief promoters is sufficient reason for a delisting from Binance… almost everything should be delisted

— nic carter (@nic__carter) April 15, 2019

He added that the crypto market is still in its “wild west era,” but he is “excited” for some changes in the integrity of these coins.

We're still in the wild west era of cryptocurrency, like it or not totally unregulated, unaccountable exchanges are the kingmakers. I for one am excited for this to change.

— nic carter (@nic__carter) April 15, 2019

Carter seems enthused with the recent drama over the delisting, saying that he “let out a smirk” when he found out about the actions taken by Binance and other exchanges.

Still, it is not yet time to celebrate, as Carter says that doing so would be “a bit short sighted.”

I let out a smirk when I read the news but celebrating this is a bit short sighted. Exchanges are part of a troika (along with coin promoters and coin rankings sites) that all profit by extracting wealth from unsophisticated investors. https://t.co/apFAiYJKJv

— nic carter (@nic__carter) April 15, 2019

Vitalik commented on the original post, saying that both agreeing with Carter’s statements and feeling that BSV should be delisted can be simultaneous opinions.

He added that, considering the circumstances, he may need to write about free speech ethics in an upcoming blog, considering that the idea “seems to confuse pretty much everyone.”

https://twitter.com/VitalikButerin/status/1117847091038932992