National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST): "Bitcoin is a Fork, Bitcoin Cash Is the Original Blockchain"
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has published a draft of its blockchain technology primer, and — consciously or not — it takes a controversial stand on the Bitcoin scaling debate.
As currently written, the 57-page “Blockchain Technology Overview” (Draft NISTIR 8202), which was published by the institute’s Computer Security Resource Center (CRSC), claims that Bitcoin Cash –not Bitcoin — is the original blockchain created by Satoshi Nakamoto.
“When SegWit was activated, it caused a hard fork, and all the mining nodes and users who did not want to change started calling the original Bitcoin blockchain Bitcoin Cash (BCC),” the document states. “Technically, Bitcoin is a fork and Bitcoin Cash is the original blockchain. When the hard fork occurred, people had access to the same amount of coins on Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash.”
Clearly, this overview presents some factual errors. While advocates may claim that “Bitcoin Cash is Bitcoin” and that the state of the original blockchain diverges from Satoshi’s original vision for the cryptocurrency, there is no hiding the fact that Bitcoin Cash — not Bitcoin — was created through the August 1 hard fork.