Will BCH ossify?

Eventually, yes. But the BCH community needs to get as much proactive upgrading done as possible before then.

Although price pumps are not a reason to ship upgrades in and of themselves, it's certainly encouraging that well-researched and valuable improvements to the protocol seem to correlate with improved market sentiment. Note that the market may value good upgrades not just for the improved utility of the upgrade itself, but also in recognition of the competence displayed by the BCH community in decentralised organisation and execution of a well-handled roll-out. A Bitcoin that can provably upgrade as needed is more valuable than one that can't (or seems risky to attempt an upgrade, or doesn't have recent practice executing one).

Bitcoin is a co-ordination protocol shared by a large number of people. This makes changing or upgrading it a precarious prospect. As the number of users grows, the spread of opinions on what is a desirable or necessary change also grows, and at some point there is enough deployed software, entrenched interests and political gridlock that the status quo simply becomes the final state of the system. The process of Bitcoin losing flexibility or upgradeability over time is called "ossification", as with unchanging archaeological fossils encased in a state of long-lasting static preservation. This is an inevitable, natural and commonly known process for internet protocols, and can be seen in globally adopted examples like SMTP for email or TCP/IP for internet traffic routing. Although very minor tweaks may be made at the margins, the combined weight of existing hardware & software which is already using the protocol makes major changes completely unfeasible.

Knowing that this process is underway, the BCH community is working hard to pre-empt its arrival. For instance, eventual ossification is part of the reasoning behind upgrades such as an algorithmically adjusting blocksize and appropriate safety limits on Bitcoin script performance requirements. Several key upgrades still need to be completed before ossification takes its course, such as UTXO Commitments.

Although ossification is inevitable in the case of a successful, widely adopted BCH, the BCH community must fight to delay it as long as possible (similar to the way it must fight to preserve Bitcoin's culture). Ossifying deliberately or by apathetic default is playing to not lose, it is not playing to win. Only an incumbent marketplace leader can potentially afford to rest on its laurels and rely on the weight of its established lead or network effect to coast along. Smaller participants must fight tooth and nail to win over converts, which means innovating and taking (calculated) risks to secure a decisive edge in the perpetual race to best satisfy consumer preferences. This is as true in the competition to be global money as it is in any other field of endeavour (for example, the stock market or competitive sports leagues). For BCH to be adopted by everyone in the whole world, it must upgrade as aggressively as possible WITHOUT causing a chain split, introducing problems with scalability or somehow becoming hijacked. This is a tricky balancing act, which is why the BCH community has the CHIP process to debate and coordinate upgrades.

Fortunately BCH has never had a culture of ossification. Unlike its sibling chains BTC & BSV, which both have a contingent of ossification supporters influential within their culture, BCH has always operated on the assumption that Bitcoin is a living project and upgrades are critical. Note that growing to BTC size will not necessarily create ossification in BCH, although it is likely to increase the degree of inertia. The hesitancy of the BTC & BSV communities in this regard is quite understandable - anybody not confident in their ability to resist a hijacking remains perpetually (and rightly) concerned that an upgrade could be a Trojan horse for some kind of sabotage. Interestingly, this is exactly what has happened in BTC with the Taproot Inscriptions bug. With this in mind, if no changes are made then Bitcoin cannot be made any worse. While this is true, and seems appealing because it feels similar to how inert monetary goods like precious metals behave, it is unfortunately not a competitive strategy against the endless field of competing cryptocurrencies that will constantly improve their products through research and experimentation.

Once BCH has surpassed the US dollar as the world's largest currency, perhaps it will be able to ride on the network effect of users and market liquidity to continue growing without upgrades. By then, maybe ossification will have taken its course. But in the meantime, all BCHers should engage with the CHIP process and be part of shaping BCH's one shot to bring the world a sound monetary system!