The Bitcoin Cash overview will be incomplete without a story about the conflict in the Bitcoin community. And even though the arguments of the rivals seem entirely convincing, this article will not produce reasons in favor of any party, because Bitcoin Cash is a successful project and popular cryptocurrency today: in general, users benefited from it. At the same time, Bitcoin is the leader in all ratings and deservedly considered the number one cryptocurrency.
The code (ticker): BCH ( the designation BCC is also used on some crypto exchanges).
The maximum number of coins, the mechanism of consensus, the time of generation of the first and genesis-block, the hashing algorithm and many other parameters are analogous to Bitcoin.
Date of creation: August 1, 2017.
Official website: bitcoincash.org.
THE HISTORY OF BITCOIN CASH
Disagreements in the teams of cryptocurrencies developers are common. Decentralization, open source software, the need to support changes by the entire community — these features make any modification of projects a problematic undertaking.
The popularity of Bitcoin has led to an increased number of transactions, proportional to the increase in the time of their confirmation and high commissions (the problem of scaling). The customer code of the first cryptocurrency contained a lot of weak points, due to which intruders abducted large sums, and potentially provided the possibility for new attacks. Changes have matured, but their unanimous support has not been approved. Disputes lasted for several years.
The Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP91) proposal consisted of a set of measures to modify the program code, and most of the community supported it, but the remainder was strongly opposed — right up to the breakdown in relations with Bitcoin team. The soft fork of the first cryptocurrency was created at the end of July 2017, and the changes were involved in the Bitcoin code, but opponents of the team were ready to launch their project.
BCH has a shared history with Bitcoin before August 1, 2017, or up to 478559 blocks, when the blockchain of Bitcoin Cash separated. BCH has got its Bitcoin cash wallet, full nodes, exchanges support, as well as its development team and active propagandists.
THE POINT OF DISAGREEMENTS
To solve the scaling problem, there was introduced a particular algorithm in the Bitcoin codec — SegWit (Segregated Witness). According to this algorithm, a part of the service information should be stored separately from the blocks.
The part of the community that subsequently supported the creation of Bitcoin Cash, did not agree with such changes and advocated the increase in the size of the block without the introduction of SegWit.
At present, records of transactions (they are stored in the primary network blocks) and their digital signatures (which are processed separately and written to the side structure — sidechain) are separated in the Bitcoin blockchain. The first cryptocurrency project, developed by Satoshi Nakamoto, does not mention such technology, and this gives an opportunity to the Bitcoin Cash propagandists to say that it is BCH that is a real Bitcoin, and the BTC is a pilot project that does not even have White Paper.
WHO PROMOTES BCH
Jihan Wu
When Bitcoins mining became a prerogative of the owners of powerful equipment, the owners of large mining pools got great respect in the community — they could influence the development of the cryptocurrency. Jihan Wu, one of the founders of Bitmain, is an active propagandist for Bitcoin Cash.
SegWit did not promise a significant increase in transaction speed but increased the burden on the mining equipment without increasing the incomes of its owners. Still, a simple increase in the size of the block ensured an increase in the number of transactions and influenced the increase in the profit of the miners. It is not surprising that Bitcoin cash mining seems more attractive, as it made up of the second scheme.
Roger Ver
An entrepreneur, an enthusiast of blockchain technologies and a person with an ambiguous reputation. Roger Ver became interested in Bitcoin and investing in startups related to the blockchain technology, in 2011. In 2014, he became CEO and owner of the domain of bitcoin.com — a portal that is not related to the official Bitcoin community, but after the launch of Bitcoin Cash, the site began aggressive promotion a new cryptocurrency to the detriment of Bitcoin.
Craig Wright
An Australian scientist, an entrepreneur, a participant, a leader and a founder of many IT and financial companies, including those related to blockchain technologies. Like Roger Ver, Craig has got a dissonant reputation and participated in several grave scandals. This man was called a possible candidate for the role of "real" Satoshi Nakamoto. Craig Wright has repeatedly advocated Bitcoin Cash in confrontation with Bitcoin.
BITCOIN CASH — A FORK OF BITCOIN OR VICE VERSA? WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENCES?
Even before the separation of the BCH and BTC blockchains, in July 2017 Bitcoin Cash got customers who supported the code of the new cryptocurrency:
a larger block size (8 megabytes);
different hashing parameters (in order to avoid double consumption);
a new algorithm of complexity recalculation (unlike Bitcoin, which uses this algorithm every 2016 blocks, the BCH applies a more flexible method).
On May 15, 2018, there was a hard fork of Bitcoin Cash, and the block size was increased again — up to 32 megabytes.
WHO WINS?
Bitcoin Cash doesn’t leave the TOP-five cryptocurrencies (according to capitalization). It is an outstanding result for a relatively new digital coin but for a project that is called "real" Bitcoin — the comparison is not in its favor.
The commission for transactions in the Bitcoin Cash network is usually smaller, but this is not always the case.
The speed of transaction confirmation for BCH is higher than for Bitcoin. Bitcoin Cash is leading — the surveys of some researchers does not leave a little possibility for the first cryptocurrency.
Even though many supporters of Bitcoin Cash continue to develop the topic of confrontation with Bitcoin, and periodically it becomes a reason for scandals, this cryptocurrency successfully competes with the most popular digital coins.
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