Both Camps in BCH ‘Hash War’ Are Mining at Major Loss

In the aftermath from yesterday‘s Bitcoin Cash (BCH) hard fork, both opposing camps in the so-called “hash war” are mining at a hefty loss, according to a tweet from the research arm of Hong Kong-based crypto derivatives platform BitMEX today, Nov. 16.

On Nov. 5, BitMEX Research announced it would be launching a network monitoring tool for both Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH), specifically in preparation for the widely-anticipated BCH hard fork Nov. 15.  

As previously reported, disagreements over a proposed network upgrade have split the BTH community into opposing factions, resulting in an intense “hash war” between miners.

The two most vehemently opposed camps are Bitcoin ABC — favored by “Bitcoin Jesus” Roger Ver — and Bitcoin SV (“Satoshi’s Vision”), led by self-proclaimed Bitcoin (BTC) inventor Satoshi Nakamoto, Craig Wright. A third, more “neutral camp,” Bitcoin Unlimited, is being led by programmer Andrew Clifford and has been pitched as a “compromise solution” between ABC and SV.

Citing their fork monitoring tool, BitMEX researchers have tweeted that “although the ABC SV split is entertaining, we estimate that SV miners are burning $280,000 per day mining the SV chain.”

BitMEX Research says these assumptions are based on SV miners using Bitmain’s Antminer S9 machines, their ability to sell SV coins at the current spot market price ($100 at the time of the tweet), and energy consumption costs of 5 cents per/kWh.

Not only are the SV miners losing major capital to win the battle, but in fact, according to an earlier tweet today from BitMEX Research, BCH ABC miners are estimated to be making even larger losses than the SV camp.

BitMEX Research estimations of mining costs in the BCH “hash war”, tweeted Nov. 16.

At press time, Bitcoin ABC is currently 28 blocks ahead, according to data from Coin.Dance.

Notably, the largest global crypto trading platform Binance, major U.S. crypto exchange Coinbase, Bitcoin.com, and mining giant Bitmain have all endorsed the Bitcoin ABC camp.

Earlier this month, reports from China revealed that Bitmain was rushing to deploy around 90,000 of its Antminer S9 machines to the western Chinese region of Xinjiang ahead of the anticipated “hash war.”