What is Bitcoin Cash? (BCH)

Getting your head around Bitcoin and altcoins are head enough as it is for the average consumer. These highly technical financial instruments aren't just new concepts and new technology but are evolving so quickly even the crypto-community struggle to keep up at times.

So what is Bitcoin cash? Is it Bitcoin fiat currency? Is it an altcoin? Is it a scam? Let's find out!

Bitcoin Cash essentially Bitcoin in many ways. It’s important to note that Bitcoin Cash is neither an altcoin nor a knock-off of Bitcoin Core. Bitcoin Cash is a hard fork of Bitcoin Core, meaning it shares the same transaction ledger and history of Bitcoin Core, and is true to the Bitcoin Core codebase until it diverged on August 1st, 2017.

The reality is that Bitcoin Cash is Bitcoin as it was meant to be—an electronic peer-to-peer cash system. This does not mean that BCH is BTC. Where they differ is that these two versions of Bitcoin are different networks, have different ticker symbols, and trade at different prices. Bitcoin Cash, to a much greater degree, functions as a transactional layer or side chain of Bitcoin.

The digital cash system people all over the world believed in and invested in during the initial years of Bitcoin adoption that lead to the worldwide phenomenon as it is known today. This spirit unequivocally lives on in Bitcoin Cash as it aims to be a currency alternative while Bitcoin Core aims to steady the cryptocurrency market and provide a digital “store of value” a gold standard which all cryptos can be based on.

What is Bitcoin Cash (BCH)?

User adoption of Bitcoin began slowly with the network able to support this growth trend. It was until 2012 when the blockchain was processing 250 transactions per block or approximately 1,500 transactions per hour. It took two more years for this number to double, and by 2014 the Bitcoin network was processing 500 transactions per block. Today, the Bitcoin Core network is at maximum capacity and processes approximately 2,500 transactions per block. If Bitcoin was going to reach its goal of becoming a global currency this bottleneck would be the be all and end all of the networks.

In order to solve this problem, the core Bitcoin team had two options available to them. Either they would have to make transactions faster or increase the blockchain size. This decision caused a heated debate and sides were taken which eventually led to the hard fork on August 1, 2017, and resulted in the creation of a new blockchain. 

Bitcoin Cash was created to bring back the essential qualities of money inherent in the original Bitcoin software. Over the years, these qualities were filtered out of Bitcoin Core and progress was stifled by various people, organizations, and companies involved in Bitcoin protocol development.

The result is that Bitcoin Core is currently unusable as digital money due to increasingly high fees per transactions and transfer times taking hours to days. This is all because of the problems created by Bitcoin Core’s blocks being full.

Why you should pay attention to Bitcoin Cash?

Lower fees

Transaction fees in both versions of Bitcoin are measured in satoshis-per-byte (a unit of Bitcoin is divisible to 8 decimal places and the smallest unit is called a “satoshi”) the way you have to accurately measure Bitcoin fees is not in dollars but in satoshis.

Because Bitcoin Core blocks are always full and there’s a large line up of people, currently, the bouncer is charging more than 900 satoshis per byte for inclusion into a block. By comparison, Bitcoin Cash’s average fee is 19 satoshis per byte.

Fee options

In addition with Bitcoin Cash, you can also set your fees manually as low as 2 satoshis per byte and be included into the next block, because there is plenty of room for everyone who wants to send a transaction.

Speed

The introduction of larger block sizes has also drastically improved the number of transactions that can be processed on Bitcoin Cash ledger.

What is Bitcoin Cash being used for?

Goods and services

Bitcoin Cash is seen as a better high-level transaction options can is being used for e-commerce, gaming, publishing, micro-transactions, and other online payments right now. Partnerships include:

• The Accept Bitcoin Cash Initiative: A community-curated list of sites/merchants that accept Bitcoin Cash
• Yours.org — a popular content publishing platform where you can get paid and pay others for quality content
• Bitpay — A leading payment solution that offers a Visa debit card that can be loaded with Bitcoin Cash
• Awesome Bitcoin Cash — A page featuring merchants, information, and other Bitcoin Cash projects

Donations

Tippr — If you’re a user of popular social media platforms Twitter and Reddit, you can set up a tip bot and always tip other users for posting informative, educational, funny, entertaining or simply amusing posts. Another popular currency for donations and tipping on social networks is Dogecoin.

Can you mine Bitcoin Cash?

Bitcoin Cash like Bitcoin uses proof of work to add new blocks to the blockchain which means that it can be mined. You don't have to mine on your own, you can also join mining pool or try joining up with a cloud miner.

Can you earn Bitcoin Cash?

Initial hard fork allocation

If you owned Bitcoin prior to the hard fork date you were allocated 1 BCH coin for every BTC coin you own. This was done for holders in exchanges and hot wallets. However, some exchanges will not let you keep the BCH associated with your BTC because of the operational difficulties associated with supporting more than one version of a digital currency.

Mining

As mentioned earlier Bitcoin Cash can be mined, this can be done by setting up a pc with the software or a fully customised rig and start mining solo or in pools. It is important to note that because of the larger block sizes computer power required to mine Bitcoin cash is immense and owning a rig that can compete will be expensive.

Trading

Bitcoin Cash users can earn digital currency via exchanges. Users can earn tokens through trading on different fiat and cryptocurrencies and take advantage of market fluctuations.

Where can you buy Bitcoin Cash?

Bitcoin Cash is listed on a range of international cryptocurrency exchanges and is actively traded on websites like

Should you invest in Bitcoin Cash?

Like all things in the cryptocurrency world, the digital finance market is a wild weird west. Bitcoin cash does have the safety of its big brother to fall back on and a talented team working on improving the technology. However, as a revolutionary technology, BCH isn't a real stand out player and there are some altcoins with the potential to replace Bitcoin cash in the future. For more on Bitcoin Cash check out their official website

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Disclaimer: This article should not be taken as, and is not intended to provide any investment advice and is for educational purposes only. As of the time posting the writers may or may not have holdings in some of the coins or tokens they cover. Please conduct your own thorough research before investing in any cryptocurrency as all investments contain risk.

Tags: Cryptocurrency, blockchain