Bitcoin transaction fees have become Btcpop’s #1 expense. This absolutely should not be the case

Btcpop, as always, will continue to support and advocate for the free market and competition to be the decision maker for as many matters as possible. As with Btcpop’s stance on the Bitcoin Cash coin split, Btcpop will honor its duty to users to support every coin split possible and give users access to each split chain in as quick and efficient manner possible (as Btcpop did with handling Bitcoin Cash).
With this being said, Btcpop refuses to remain neutral on matters which it fully understands and views as negative to the Bitcoin network and community. Btcpop’s owner is a long term user, programmer, and entrepreneur in the Bitcoin space. This knowledge and experience brings with it a long term understanding of Bitcoin and all of the social, economic, and technological aspects that come with it. As a result, Btcpop is taking a firm, educated stance on the ongoing scaling debate.

Btcpop will stay on the hash-rate majority chain and use Segwit2x

Bitcoin miners have signaled their intention to increase the base block size limit to 2mb in November as part of the Segwit2x deployment. This change is intended to temporarily alleviate congestion on the network and reduce transaction fees while other scaling solutions enabled by Segwit are implemented. Our operating assumption at Btcpop is that miners will do as they have indicated and deploy this increase in the block size limit.

In November, the most popular distribution of Bitcoin software, Bitcoin Core, has decided they will not adopt Segwit2x. As such Btcpop will not be using Core software and will use BTC1 Software which is compatible with the 2MB hard fork.

Btcpop’s handling of “Bitcoin Core” chain split contingent on hash-rate

Hash-rate will, in the end, always determine which coin is Bitcoin. Short term arbitrage opportunities aside, it is Btcpop’s opinion that the market will eventually reach consensus and there will be one obvious “Bitcoin” chain which is the longest with the most hash-rate, developer support, and customer acceptance.
In the case that Bitcoin Core splits the network again over the segwit2x hard-fork, and Core’s chain is the minority chain like Bitcoin Cash, Btcpop will not list Core coin on its exchange. Btcpop will support the coin and ensure a safe secure fork, but it will not be traded on Btcpop and will only be available for withdrawal.

Btcpop no Longer supports Bitcoin Core

Bitcoin Core has become a anti-free market bully in the Bitcoin space. In Btcpop’s opinion, Core has leveraged their influential position, as a primary Bitcoin developer team, to advance personal agenda’s and ego's to the detriment of the entire Bitcoin community and protocol. In Btcpop’s opinion, Core’s actions have lead to the social splitting of the Bitcoin community, reduction in adoption, and the loss of much market capital for Bitcoin.

Core has intentionally stalled the throughput of Bitcoin by refusing to raise the blocksize limit for years, just for their own ideological and egotistical reasons. There exists many technological and economically sound oppositions to Core’s scaling roadmap, and in the short term, a known secure scaling method of raising the block size has been avoided even when their would be no technological consequences in the short term. Core has also knowingly practiced the anti free market practice of censorship and trolling of competing opinions on the matter of bitcoin. This practice has no benefit to anyone, as it doesn’t advance the technological (or economical) debate in any way, and only further divides the community.

High Transaction Fees hurt Adoption, Usability, and Btcpop

The high transactions fees which are a result in refusing to scale Bitcoin even in the short term hurt everyone in the Bitcoin space. While a lot can be said for the loss of usability and adoption, Btcpop cares to share that as a Bitcoin business, Bitcoin transaction fees have become Btcpop’s #1 expense. This absolutely should not be the case and as one of the early businesses working in the Bitcoin space Btcpop feels it necessary to share with its users the severity of this cost.

Btcpop’s direct expenses filling its own hot wallet on internal transactions has gone from a non-significant or accounted expense, to Btcpop’s #1 expense. With current fees as of 8/26/17, a standard HW refill (which happens anywhere from 2-7 times a week) would cost Btcpop $900 worth of Bitcoin! This is simply unacceptable and luckily the use of viabtc’s transaction accelerator is possible (which Btcpop now uses for all large expensive transactions to keep costs lower). Its also important to remember that Btcpop’s HW transaction fees don’t even cover the user withdrawal fee. Btcpop had to go so far as to develope a custom withdrawal fee calculator for its users, something it never thought would be necessary.

Going forward

Going forward, Btcpop hopes that the scaling debate can be “resolved” in a civil cooperative manner where Bitcoin is scaled by both on-chain and off-chain solutions to best meet market needs and be the best Bitcoin possible. Competition and the free market will be the end decider of this debate regardless of people's opinions.
Btcpop will continue to advance it’s platform and intends on now creating multiple lending coin options in addition to Bitcoin to best meet market needs. In the future users will be able to choose from a variety of coin denominated loans (BTC, BCH, ETH, XMR…….) with increased customization on collateral and insurance options. However, for now Btcpop’s primary development project will be establishing exchange API and redoing its User Interface.

New Exchange Look