Bitcoin Cash (BCH)

You know what Bitcoin is but what is Bitcoin Cash?

Bitcoin Cash is a hard fork of Bitcoin. In 2017 the Bitcoin community had concerns about Bitcoin’s scalability. Could it ever be used as an actual currency? Could it process enough transactions? The Bitcoin blockchain split and the “new” blockchain became Bitcoin Cash.

A hard fork is much like a fork in the road. On one path you have the original blockchain and on the other, you have a copy of the original but it has some variations to the code, so it is not an exact copy.

When a hard fork happens, miners and the community must make a choice. Do they stick with the original blockchain or declare the new one the true blockchain?

What Does Bitcoin Cash do?

Bitcoin Cash is designed to be a scalable solution to Bitcoin. It is an entirely different cryptocurrency to bitcoin and can process more transactions faster, with fewer fees. Supporters of Bitcoin Cash consider it the legitimate continuation of Bitcoin as peer-to-peer currency.

As with Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash works on proof of work and has to be mined using computational power.

Bitcoin Cash has all the benefits of Bitcoin’s security and decentralization, plus it can handle more transactions. While Bitcoin Cash in theory sounds great, keep in mind that it is not the original Bitcoin. Bitcoin miners did not migrate to Bitcoin Cash and declare it the true Bitcoin. It is a valid project in itself, but it is not Bitcoin because the code is different.

Additionally, the Lightning Network is successfully being used worldwide to scale Bitcoin. Payments made over the Lightning Network allow for faster and cheaper Bitcoin transactions. So do we really need Bitcoin Cash? That’s up to you to decide.