Bitcoin Cash Is Bitcoin? Lawsuits Won't Stop the Fight Over Bitcoin's Name

Rather, the allegations started after it was noticed that the block explorer, a tool for visualizing data on Bitcoin.com, an educational site that Roger Ver owns, had labeled what many consider the "Bitcoin cash protocol," the version of the blockchain that forked off bitcoin this past August, "Bitcoin."

"While it's fine for one to have the personal opinion that bitcoin cash is similar to what was described in the bitcoin white paper, presenting bitcoin cash itself as bitcoin on a commercial website visited by thousands of newbies daily looking to learn about the actual bitcoin is just deceptive and fraudulent."

Stepping back, the fight that Roger Ver finds himself at the center of is rather an age-old argument about who or what defines bitcoin.

Ver's own belief, which he's expressed multiple times over the years, is that the true bitcoin must fulfill "Satoshi's vision" of a "Peer-to-peer electronic cash system," a term laid down in the original white paper, published in 2009.

He went so far as to argue that bitcoin cash beat out bitcoin core in every category, except for "Longest chain, with most proof of work."

Tensions have continued to run high since then, primarily because Ver continues to refer to bitcoin cash as bitcoin.

At a conference in April, he said that refusing to accept bitcoin cash as the real bitcoin delays the technology's adoption, and that "Means more babies are dying in countries around the world."

Twitter user Armin van Bitcoin has accused Ver of promoting "Rat poison" in his marketing of bitcoin cash as bitcoin.

As Matt Gertler, senior analyst and counsel at Digital Asset Research points out, Ver's public insistence that bitcoin cash is the real bitcoin could make it "Difficult to prove that he knowingly misrepresented the truth."

What's more, these points are moot, because Bitcoin.com does not sell bitcoin cash in the U.S. In jurisdictions where it does sell bitcoin cash, the page clearly distinguishes between bitcoin cash and bitcoin core; there is no option to purchase just "Bitcoin."