Proposed bitcoin scaling solution Bitcoin Classic has announced it will be closing its doors, claiming bitcoin cash is now achieving what the project set out to do.
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Speaking in a blog post, release manager for Bitcoin Classic, Tom Zander, said that, given the suspension of the Segwit2x hard fork, bitcoin's scaling problem will continue, and the functionality of bitcoin cash will likely surpass that of bitcoin.
Zander wrote:
"In at most 6 months I'm sure we'll just drop the 'Cash' and call it 'Bitcoin'."
Initiated in 2016, Bitcoin Classic's stated goal was to increase bitcoin's transaction capacity by raising the block size from 1MB to 2MB, however, it failed to gain traction as a bitcoin alternative.
Now, through bitcoin cash, which allows for adjustable block sizes and a default of 8MB, "Classic has fulfilled its promise," the post states.
Earlier this week, the team behind controversial scaling proposal Segwit2x said it will not proceed due to a lack of consensus surrounding the hard fork.
Due to this decision, Zander wrote that the those behind the so-called "legacy chain" (Zander's term for the bitcoin blockchain), "would rather go down with their ship" than upgrade the software to keep up with the rising numbers of transactions.
As such, he said, Classic will cease operations "in a matter of days or weeks," urging all miners and nodes currently supporting the network to immediately migrate to an alternative.
Earlier this year, bitcoin activated a scaling solution called SegWit, which increases transaction quantity without raising the block size, and paves the way for future off-chain scaling solutions. However, the impact this has had on the network has so far been minimal, leading some to criticize the software.
While this has been attributed to a lack of adoption in the industry, Zander states that bitcoin's failure to increase the block size limit merely "confirms the Cash chain's viability." With this perspective, Zander joins others in predicting that bitcoin cash will flourish following the Segwit2x cancellation. He concluded that regarding the future of bitcoin, "the market will decide."
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