Hey steemians,
while the price of Bitcoin Cash has risen again over the weekend, the plans to repair the Difficulty adjustment on November 13 through Hardfork are solidifying. If the cryptocurrency wants to be taken seriously, it is also urgently needed.
Over the weekend, Bitcoin Cash (BCH) rose from $ This massive increase is being orchestrated by a more likely failure of the SegWit2x Hardfork as well as the idea of Bitcoin cash that Bitcoin Cash is "the true Bitcoin".
In fact, all this ignores the fact that the Difficulty Algorithm of Bitcoin Cash is terribly broken. To understand what it's about, we need to get a little bit out: Bitcoin adjusts the difficulty of mining all 2016 blocks - about every two weeks - so that about one block is generated in ten minutes. So far so good. But as soon as there are two coins competing for the miners with the same algorithm, this adjustment becomes the trap for the weaker - that is, cheaper - Coin: The miners are migrating in droves to the more profitable currency, but the Difficulty remains high for 2016 blocks , It takes longer for new blocks to be found, and the block chain freezes. In extreme cases, this can mean that there are no new blocks at all.
EDA
To protect Bitcoin Cash from this threat, the developers have implemented the so-called "EDA", the "Emergeny Difficulty Adjustment", which translates as "emergency adjustment of difficulty": If the last six blocks were found in more than 12 hours, the Difficulty of mining reduced by 20 percent.
The EDA has been successful in ensuring the survival of Bitcoin Cash. However, it was a terrific grab in the loo when it came to keeping the block intervals stable. Since the birth of Bitcoin Cash on August 1, periods of "Ice Age", in which a block is found only every few hours, alternate with flash periods triggered by a series of EDAs, and sometimes the block interval to less lower than a minute. An unpleasant side effect is that since August nearly 8,000 Bitcoin cash blocks - or about 100,000 monetary units - were found too much. Bitcoin Cash thus has a much higher inflation rate than Bitcoin.
WHAT NEED TO BE DONE
To fix this disaster, Bitcoin Cash developers are planning a hardfork on November 13 that will change the Difficulty algorithm. At the moment, however, it is not yet clear which proposal the developers will decide. With suggestions from Tom Zander (Classic), Amaury Séchet (ABC), Neil Booth (Unlimited) and Tom Harding (XT), each development team involved in Bitcoin Cash has submitted a proposal. Now it is important to quickly decide for one thing and implement it.
The concrete proposals consist mainly of mathematical formulas that try to achieve a stable block interval of 600 seconds, which adapts flexibly to the hashrates, but is not so complex that SPV wallets do not understand it anymore. The key issue is finding the right balance between flexible customization and stability. The proposals of Amaury Séchet, Neil Booth and Tom Harding are described in detail. Tests carried out with simulations by Neil Booth and Tom Harding show that Harding's proposal provides ideal results because it combines the high flexibility of Séchets and the stability of Booth's algorithm.
Scott Roberts
The same conclusion comes the developer Scott Roberts. He already had some experience with Altcoin's proven flexible difficulty algorithms like Digishield, and suggested he would use a customized version of Digishield v.3 - but concludes that Tom Harding's algorithm works even better. Scott Roberts said:
"I hope the other developers will agree, 'That's it'."
If this succeeds - if Bitcoin Cash implements a working, flexible adaptation of Difficulty in November - the cryptocurrency has a good chance of profiting significantly from the fact that Bitcoin might run into splits and chaos with the SegWit2x Hardfork.
Update: BitcoinABC announced today to implement Amaury Séchet's proposal after nChain and BitPrim tested the various proposals. Although this variant may not achieve the best performance, it is better protected against some exceptional cases.
WHAT IS your opinion on BITCOIN-CASH? will it really make Bitcoin absolute? I am curious at your answers.
Best
Francesco