your still not getting the big picture..

before the bilateral split. the community beleived that many nodes could happily run on one network and core had no power.
this was done by bing in control of the other node devs.

core and its paid devs got its fundraiser to pay other devs to create altrnate clients.
(gavin is part of the clan.. not against it.. xt/classic were drama events to pretend their was decentralisation and free choice)

 so that it would cause drama. purely to incite a degree of the population to start cheering core as a leader. they then went a stage further by starting REKT campaigns to push out any "competition" against core and have the community slowly get used to the idea that core should not have consensus competitors.

and then when core only got 35% vote on a proposal(segwit) the core paid devs had to ramp it up a notch. and get a team to make a bilateral split proposition that threw all the opposers of core off the core network. thus making core a monarchy

gavin and jgarzic (bitcoin cash creators) are funded by the same people that fund gmaxwell and p.wuille.
even the lightning "teams" are paid by the same too.. rusty russel is one example


segwit/lightning is the "product" that the bankers NEEDED activating to control peoples funds. it was not about malleability. it was about multisig control and also part of it still in the works (schnorr) which then hides who the 'managers' are so even the bank2.0 customers dont know who has signing privelidges

this whole last few years was not a throw the sheep into boiling water and see how many jump out and ram the chef.. it was dip the sheep in comfortable water and slowly incrase the temperature until they boil to death without realising.

core have the network all in their protocol controlling hands. core is not just a wallet. they are now deemed as the sole controller of the rules.. they are centralised.

now even if you play the 2 team game of bitcoin core vs bitcoin cash.. to dcg.co it doesnt matter. they own both coins and if bitcoin cash becomes more popular. dcg.co will just transfer dev priorities to manipulate cash.
so see beyond the 2 team game as the two team game is a farse.

above was about the network/protocol....as for the clarity of the currency.
no one should own "bitcoin"
both "teams" should not play the game .. and instead just clarify to users when the user asks for bitcoin. the community should ask
is that bitcoin core or bitcoin cash

OP has it all wrong

a currency can be anything. cigarettes in prison, for instance.. beer for helping a friend

"money"
however is the wide spread, stable, medium of exchange.

and money is just one sub category of currency.
there are many othr sub categories

bitcoin sits in the asset currency category
gold sits in the commodity currency AND asset currency category


 so the OP should rename the topic
"how well does bitcoin function as a money" if he wants an answer to his specific definition

once people start making crap coins of 5trillion coins and sell 1 coin for $5.. making the marketcap $5trillion but (not actually hold trillions of dollars) only holding just $5

and once people come to the realisation that a market cap is meaningless. then they will wake up that the equity/derivatives market caps are the same meaningless stat too

for instance the sub prime debts.

when a customer signs a credit/mortgage agreement. new currency is created. no cost  bar the papers its signed on and a stamp($1). yet it sets itself at a market rate of hundreds of thousands..
those contracts are then sold off privately for pennies on the dollar. and then competing financial firms then treat these contracts of pennies on the dollar as something both sides should 'bet on'

EG
mortgage $200k.. cost of production $1.00 .. markt value $350k(after interest).
the agreement is then sold on for ~$35k - ~$50k and then firms bet on if it will be paid in full or ends in reposession.

the net result is a piece of paper costing $1. created $200k credit. and then gets a market rate of upto $400k all-in
because some of the bets which are also insured have calculated on average a customer with a total repayment of $350,000 ends up paying the contract holder trust only ~$300k(short of the full agreemnt amount). to then end up in forclosure/reposession. thus the customer loses their $300k and the house still worth over $200k (over $500k value combined)

and thus their market rate of ~$400k all in is a bargain(under $50k of real funding), when the average returns is about $500k after selling on the house.

i tried to simplify the above but for some it still can seem over their head, as i skipped a few details

TL:DR;
derivatives market play with mortgage agreemnts. real funding invested ~$50k max.. but market cap being $400k-$500k

its clarifying things.

eg that Novogratz guy Says ‘Bitcoin Core is BTC’

so, using the dollar analogy

U.S dollar is USD

yes by making it clear about the community network and the abreviation then his statement is ok

but no one owns the brand

U.S dollar is USD
A.U dollar is AUD

but neither are the sole, one and only dollar

..
‘Bitcoin Core is BTC’
‘Bitcoin Cash is BCH’
but neither are the sole, one and only bitcoin

the civil war of mid 2017 (bilateral split) seen to that

..
major analogy time. seeing as the OP brought up the "empire" analogy. legs start with that
imagine in 2009 there was a british empire. that had one currency, that everyone on many continents agreed was one currency network/medium of exchange called the dollar for years one network. many communities, many maintainers of record and many rule lobbyists

.. then came the civil war fo 2017. instead of democracy they decided to over throw the rule of law and democracy and go independant. to go their separate ways

now although these ex empire currencies proclaim they both have history going back to the british empire to use the dollar. they both have different populations that value the dollar within their new communities at different rates. and so because they are now no longer part of the original empire and both differ.. neither can make claim to being sole owner of the dollar. and thus have to clarify which community currency they are using/trading
for instance
america has to communicate its USD  (core has to comunicate its btc)
australia has to communicate its  AUD (cash has to comunicate its bch)
if core keep trying to proclaim they are just "bitcoin". then they are being hypocritical and literally centralising things to only one community. rather than remain decentralised. thus they are confusing the issue.

anyone attacking cash but not attacking cores hypocrisy. dont care about decentralisation and instead want centralisation in the form of a core monarchy

are we going to have 10 years of this finger pointing just to try making people think that core should own the branding just to stop the finger pointing..

or
should we just stop finger pointing and instead inform the community that NO team owns "bitcoin" brand
and although core maintain btc
and although bloq maintain bch
both teams are not "the bitcoin"

and although thymos promotes btc as the bitcoin
and although Roger.ver promote bch as the bitcoin
both teams are not "the bitcoin"

and although a.back pretends he helped satoshi make bitcoin
and although C.wright pretends he helped satoshi make bitcoin
both a.holes did not code anything during 2008-2010 so both are lying a.hats
and so both teams are not "the bitcoin"

both networks diverted off the old path and so both cannot claim ownership of satoshi's invention. they both have code that is far too different to satoshi's invention.
so both cannot make claim over it

it was a bilateral split. not a unilateral split. meaning both sides diverted not just one

remember if your going to waste time pointing fingers at one team remmber to point fingers at the other team, because behind the scenes they are doing the same thing and funded by the same people..

dont leet them distract the community with social drama of people that have not programed the networks. purely so the guys that coded the networks can play victim and ownership..

anyway do we really need dozens more topics of the same topic saying the same kardashian drama without actually being realistic and informative in the topic creators propaganda post.

(facepalm)
no you dont become a millionaire that way. because you dont have $5mill waiting in bank accounts with your name on it.
market caps are a meaningless number. no one should care abour market caps. no one should mention them no one should use them aas a stat.
they are a meaningless thing.

all that matters is the price of a single coin and the cause/reason for the price of a single coin. if a coin has no purpose/no function then dont expect much

when rich guys tell you to short something.. those rich guys already have shorted it. and are now wanting others to react so that they can do the opposite

EG when a rich guy says sell.. he already sold and wants othrs to now sell so he can buy at a discount
then after the rich guy buys at a discount. they will then and only then tell others to start buying. for the price rise. so the richguys can then sell

here is your mindset problem.
you keep thinking the network maintained by core, which has to strictly follow cores BIP process and submit new features only via cores github.. is "bitcoin"

both core and cash do not own bitcoin
both sides (bitcoin.org and bitcoin.com) need to clarify that they are
bitcoin core
bitcoin cash

dont you get it yet

and bitcoin core DID break from the consensus rules.. segwit is a consensus rule break. hense why from november 2016-summer 2017 they only had 35% consensus vote and thus segwit would not have got activated as it would caused issues to the network at 35%

thats why they got bloq to make cash. to get rid of the 65% opposers. so that segwit could fake a 95% vote to activate segwit

dont you get it yet

bloq and core are partners in crime. the bilateral split was a bi-directional (2 altcoin) event that both are different codebases,, address types, network topology compared to bitcoin 2009-2013

and if you still think cores network is decentralised and open. i dare you to make a node that wishes to use in-network consensus feature satoshi built to have a new feature that opposes CORES roadmap. .. and just se how fast your node gets ban-hammered, REKT, propagandised as an attack. as oppose to a fair decentralised challenge to a network upgrade.

mhm
price drops is never panic day.. its discount day
i still get shocked that people panic sell on discount days when they should actually be buying more while its cheap

EG $15k->$20k
silly fools say "nah im not gonna sell, i think i might buy more. its heading to infinity"
EG $20k->$6k
silly fools say "i should sell. so i dont lose" ... sold.. "OMG I MADE A LOSS, how is that possible"

vs

EG $15k->$20k
smart traders say "i should sell. so i make profit and not lose when it crashes" ... sold.. "OMG I MADE profit.. PARTY"
EG $20k->$6k
smart traders say "nah im not gonna sell, i think i might buy more. averages my coins to a lower price to then be more profitable on the next rise"

the $20k was what is known as a BUBBLE period. where the price went so wildly out of field of value. the bulls went on a rampage. the correction down to $8k in the new year was the bulls being brought back into the fields of value. and then there was a nasty U shape bear run where the forrest bears were ripping up the support trees (prices went below cost of mining)

usually the safest place is the edge of the field that meets the edge of the forrest, which is where true value lays. but running into the bull fields leads you to bubble mountain which then explodes (floor is lava) and everyone runs back to safety.  

actually the core fanboys are desparetly trying to point fingres at mouthpiece ver(a theymos mirror-counterpart) as if bitcoin cash is relient on ver. much like sayng bitcoin core is relient on theymos. all to istract the truth that bitcoin cash exists due to bloq

read the 10 pages of this topic and see how many core fans attack jgarzic.. you wont find any. because core fanboys love jgarzic. and deep down they know that its all one big masqurade to point fingers at people that never coded a node, as the person to blame for everything. so that a team that code a node can centralise a network

i agree CW is a scammer.
but adam back was saying he was part of bitcoins creation too.. yet he wrote no code in 2008-2009 to have created it.

so Gmax didnt try getting the network to bilateral split? is that what your saying
so gmax didnt employ samson mow to UASF

oh and by the way.. ver and Wu didnt cause the bilateral split.. but hey i understand your too indocrinated by all the reddit propaganda
again BLOQ and BLOCKSTREAM (core team) instigated the bilateral split.
here is gmax literally begging the core opposition to bilateral split, but the opposition wanted a proper consensus. which greg hated as it lwould have left core stuck at 35% if the bilateral split did not occur.. hense why he insisted the only option was BLOQ as a silent partnr to force a bilateral split



actually roger ver is not claiming bch is btc
roger is claiming cash is "bitcoin"
what you said is like saying RV claims AUD is USD (makes no rational sense)

theymos is claiming core is the only "bitcoin".. check out bitcoin.org.
again the hypocrisy of arguing about team B applies to team A

but hey. instead of talking about "bitcoin" decentralisation you seem to only want to defend core team members

you need to learn both teams are paid by barry silbert. and it is just kardashian drama to get people to argue about if they love Kylie or khloe. pretending its all a fight of 2 surnames and which surname desrves the kardashian brand. all so that they can claim ownership and prevent the other 7billion people from using the brand because they want the name trademarked into the family...
dont you get it no one should own the name.. not team a or b.. but those funding both teams want the sheep fighting about both teams they own to make the community choose one team as the centralist. and thus the funders win either way.

BIG PICTURE THINKING REQUIRED. not core defense small minds
no one should own "bitcoin"

not ver.. not theymos
no one one team should say they are the only node software for the networks not bloq not core
no one scammer manager should pretend they were involved at day one making bitcoin. not C.wright not A.back

but hey.. seems youll defend core till its fiat2.0 and just let it centralise until its time for you to run back to fiat1.0 with your profits. as thats what most core fanboys only care about. making fiat profits. not caring one bit about bitcoins decentralisation

there WAS politics. in the form of consensus, which was a feature built by satoshi to allow on-network voting to allow competing idea's to find a compromise that would suite the whole community and if the high majority of the community agreed then the network upgrades to that new feature.

however. core team assured that they had veto power and methods to avoid politics.
last year at the bilateral split. where bitcoin core political party(fanboys) went in the direction of segwit/ln/offchain. and the opposition were thrown in the other direction.

democratic consensus was not used to activate segwit. this is because the core political party only had 35% of the vote(prior to the bilatral split(civil war)). so instead of accepting they did not get their rule set into bitcoin law, they decided to go to civil war by making 2 opposing states so that all the core political fans went to one state and the others went to another state. thus in the core state, it would "appear" that core got its 95% vote. but the only voters allowed to vote after the bilateral split were core friendly.. thus the fair consensus mechanism was abused.

meaning anyone that loves cores political statement (the roadmap) can stay in there boys club and anyone who ever opposes core or decides later to change their loyalty away from being core loyal to not being core loyal will be thrown out.

this is why core has centralised the core network. where by things like Fibre ensure the only blocks that get broadcast to the general public are the core following rules. this is why the general public do not see any orphans being passed around
https://blockchain.info/charts/n-orphaned-blocks?timespan=1year
because everyone on the core network is sheep followin the exact rules or will get banned from the network if they ever tried to use democratic consensus feature built by satoshi that meant to allow on-network competition offering an different option for people to vote for or against..

yep cor ensured that its their rule or get banned

market cap stats are meaningless

i could make a coin tomorrow with 5 trillion coins. and sell just 1.. yes 1 coin for $5 and instantly my coin would have a market cap of $5trillion and suddenly jump to the top of the list of market caps.. all for the price of $5

the sooner people dont speculate based on market cap. and instead speculate on price per coin or some other more meaningful metric. the better.
in short
stop giving a crap about market cap

reason one security
because no one spends alot of funds/time to create the ICO's, no one cares if the system breaks. no one cares about a real 5 -500 year future. and so these coins have no strength/power backing them up. if a hacker group really wanted to waste their time on an ICO they could find many bugs and holes to mess with that system.
but with POW coins. many hackers for years have tried to find ways around POW, but cant break it

take some POS coins
som coins are so buggy that anyone can start at block zero and quicky sign their own blocks containing tx data of their own choosing and quickly create a chain that out paces the chain other people have. making some coin holders then accept the newly created chain and divert away from the old chain (yea some chains dont have mile stone locks to preserve certain chain with a certain hash history)

many ico's spring up so quickly that investors dont even bother reading the source code to check for bugs or do due dilegance to see if the ICO wallet is a real coin wallet or just a trojan filled with key loggers and coin wallet stealing functionality. they simply run first cry later

reason two. value
gold costs somthing becaus see it costs something to make it
air does not cost anything to make

proof of work is proof of labour. knowing it costs x to make 1btc, makes people know that pools wont sell below x. and as time goes on and historic puchases of cheaper coins get sol, the new buyers wont sell below their price and so a minimumm(bottom) price emergs and over time increases.

but other ICO's that just make coins out of no where with no cost of creation. have no bottom value. no costs that need to be covered and so thy can be sold at any price and so they will not have the same long term price incline as POW

..
now imagine if it didnt require large excavators and sluce machines to mine gold, costing over $1k a ounce. imagine gold could be found with a simple magnet for $1.. the price of gold would be only a few dollars right now. even without messing with the supply/demand/utility. just messing with the cost of production would effect the end value.

imagine bitcoin didnt need an average of xx exahash to mine a bitcoin. but was made by 2 people in a garage spending just $1 a day in electric. they would be selling bitcoin to cover their electric and bitcoin would not be as high as it is now.

check out the price data for around autumn 2013. (october).. then check out events.. like the hashrate of that period. yep. ASICS were first launched publicly in october 2013, which is where the first major price rise began

bitcoin is owned by no one

bitcoin.com talks about cash
bitcoin.org talks about core

both sides need to clarify that they are
bitcoin core
bitcoin cash

much like the analogy of "dollar"
america talks about U.S dollar
australia talks about A.U dollar

both sides need to clarify that they are
U.S dollar
A.U dollar

again no one should own "bitcoin"
if you are going to rebut to say that the network with the core rules, the core bips, the core roadmap, and the team that have paid devs from blockstream who are also making segwit and lightning.. should be and own bitcoin.. then you have said goodbye to decentralisation.

which is what they want. they want decentralisation to die and to only have distribution (their buzzword: distributed ledger technology (DLT))

so any argument you can have against ver also applies to theymos (both promote a team as being "the bitcoin")
so any argument you can have against jgarzic also applies to PWuille(both coded a node that maintains the rules and introduces new rules)
any argument you have against craig wright also applies to adam back (both falsely proclaim they invented bitcoin but neither coded anything in 2008-2009)

because if you take a few steps back.. you will realise the whole bilateral split event was designed to fake democracy, purely to activate a bip that had 35% vote. by distracting the opposition into another coin which. in actual fact is maintained, created and activated by the same group funding the core team.

so by saying X deserves it or Y deserves it. is the same as saying "someone" deserves it.
NO ONE DESERVES IT.

the bilateral split was not just a random altcoin event. it was a bi-directional split of equal direction change. both sides became an alt that is now different to the old chain. no side has claim over being the one and only.

if you intend to play the game that if someone hates core they must love cash.. is just playing th sheep game of fake choice.
look beyond the tactics of the only choice being team A or team B and bickering over which..

bitcoin should be ownd by no teams and so no one should defend core and no one should defend cash
.
now take a few steps back,, take off any team defense caps off.. take a few deep breaths and think about decentralised bitcoin.

even funnier part is because i dont like cores centralisation you think the opposers to centralisation should be pigeon holed into another team..
that there is the mindset of someone who deep down thinks centralisation is the only way things function.
'if your not team X you must be team Y'

you have become so indocrinated that your even using their words "big blockers", like you have been handed a script.

you are still stuck in the 2 sided battle mindset that you cant see the big picture

i explained it many times..
bloq who made cash is paid by the same investors as blockstream who make core



its a massive kardashian drama distraction to cause people who hate core(kim fanclub) to be pushed into one of the other sisters fanclub.. simply to get core(kims) fans to not see the opposers, allowing core(kim) to do what she likes, while trying to get the opposers indocrinated into being deceived back into centralisation by making them favour another of the same family(DCG) member

its like sheep herding. where the farmer(dcg) has a field. he sends his sheep dogs(blockstream/bloq) to scare some sheep into a neighbouring field. the sheep think they are freeing themselves by running through the open gate into another field. but they dont realise the farmer owns that field too

just look at the mirror
adam back | craig wright (both scamming to say they invented "bitcoin")
gmaxwell | Jgarzic (both saying they made the main nodes of the network)
theymos | ver (both saying they own and moderate the main information portals)

people who beleive in real decentralisation should be saying
NO TEAM owns "bitcoin". the bilateral split seen to that
both sides can use "bitcoin" but must clarify if its the bilateral fork made by cores rules or by cash's rules
bitcoin.org also needs to be less biased about core if you think that bitcoin.com needs to be less biased about cash.

if you disagree then you really are stuck in the core monarchy defense camp
it makes it real obvious that most already want core centralisation. because they refuse to pretend decentralisation exists, because if they wer decentralists they would attack jgarzic
jgarzic has not been attacked FOR MAKING cash. because the core fanboys know he is one of their own monarchs

i tried to keep the whole british manarchy/commonwealth/empire comparison short by only using the modern analogy of "dollar" just to keep it ELI-5 but it seems too many are too stuck in a centralist mindset to see it.
so to americans. who think they all speak english, just like canada and australia. you can pretend you speak english and that english is your language you own. but its not. you speak american. its pot8o not pot@o.

so to australians. who think they all speak english, just like canada and america. you can pretend you speak english and that english is your language you own. but its not. you speak australiann. its good day not ga'day.

you must clarify that you are american when dealing in international communications and clarify that your currency is american dollar as oppose to australian dollar.and that you can use the term "dollar" but do not own "dollar" brand.  

but im guessing most will just continue reading the scripts of reddit(cores church/bible) and preach the word of core religion
so just if you cannot get out of the religion. atleast be honest and preach
"decentralisation is dead, long live distribution"

have a nice enclosed life and enjoy fiat2.0 of banker managed hubs, if your not gonna bother seeing the big picture to fight for real decentralisation

all arguments about bitcoin cash can be made about bitcoin core
all arguments about bitcoin.com can be made about bitcoin.org

the reality is NEITHER are "the one and only sole bitcoin" the bilateral split seen to that

but it makes the situation alot clearer if you can be smart enough to take an unbiased step back (300 steps back for some) and then translate the crypto buzzwords into the dollar buzzwords. to then see it in a ELI-5 plain english average joe understanding

i still cant beleive that after atleast 10 topics of atleast half a dozen pages per topic that people ignore the bilateral split and instead do all they can to defend core as "the one and only bitcoin" maintainers.

to those that want to scream there is only one bitcoin and its the one that contains the code rules and bips and roadmap maintained by core.. just o one thing
just proclaim this
"decentralisation is dead long live distrubution" and stop pretending that core can own the brand yet prtend its all still decentralised

so just proclaim "decentralisation is dead.. long live distribution" and move on living in your monarchy and you kissing a kings ass and liv in your centralist world.

btc moved away from the single empire just as much as bch moved away from the single empire.
their is now no single empire. no one owns the empire or the branding.
not cores codebase of segwit and the roadmap that makes up BTC
not cashs codebase that makes up Bch

stop pretending cores protocol cores codebase, cores rules, cores features that make up btc own "bitcoin"
the bilateral split seen to that.

put it this way
if there was not a august 2017 bilateral split. and instead a consensus vote of a SINGLE network upgrade. then that single empire would retain the brand and all the opposing nodes would continue to run on the single network as a single nation

but the civil war/bilateral split. showed they both surrendered to walk in different directions. they both equally lost the battle of being a single network being "the bitcoin"

you want to prtend your not defending core by saying "btc" owns "bitcoin" solely and fully..
anyway i could take it one step further and we could argue all day about why should core even own the term BTC.

the network of CORE rules has no rights of ownership to the brand.. if you disagree and think the network of core rules should own the brand then you are just saying core own the network. because they are the maintainers and rule setters of that network.

if you still cannot see the loyalist spech you are making that cores rules should own "bitcoin" then you are too close to kissing cores ass..
take a few steps back..
if you cant see it still.. take a few more steps back

again you cant just say america gets to own brand dolar due to america having larger population.. thats the weakest defence of all and belongs as a punch line on a stand up comedy night..
it would be the case in a concensus situation.. but a consensus situation did not occur. so is meaningless

the reason its funny. because after a bilateral split.. you are saying if lets say it became extremely profitable to mine bitcoin xyz(random made up) and suddenly that random fork over powered core in hash rate.. would you then claim bitcoin xyz(random made up) is now the sole and only bitcoin

or would you still say bitcoin core(btc) was the real and only bitcoin

many trend anals just look at price history. and draw triangles based on mythical numbers of xday average that can vary as they please to create a triangle of any angle they please to make a prediction of anything they please.

but when looking at what actually caused the spikes and dumps there is actually a correlation related to mining cost.
and we are still not out of the forrest where the bears live in regards to the support line caused by mining cost. so we are not quite in the open fields where the bulls graze.

if you want to check out why the october 2013 rise occured check out what month the first ASICS came online. and remember a pool will not sell a coin at a loss.
EG a gold miner if it cost him over $1000 an ounce to mine. wont sell their gold ounces for $1
EG a gold miner if it cost him only $1 an ounce to mine. would sell their gold ounces for $1 and that would mak gold only be around $1

just make a chart of the markets. and then overlay it with the mining costs. and you will see the fleld edge between bull and bear. you will see where the "speculative bubble" (over priced) area's are. and you will see where the main support line is