Cryptocurrency

Bitcoin Cash, also known as BCH, is a hard fork variant of the original Bitcoin cryptocurrency. The original Bitcoin (BTC), while revolutionary, suffered from scalability issues. Transaction processing speed was also a big problem with Bitcoin. Bitcoin is also not very practical for use as currency in the real world either.

By August 2017, many Bitcoin miners, developers, and online community members of the Bitcoin ecosystem voted to initialize a hard fork of the original Bitcoin blockchain. This hard fork initialization from the original Bitcoin blockchain created Bitcoin Cash.

Bitcoin Cash is a P2P electronic currency system that improves upon its predecessor dramatically. Bitcoin Cash electronic payments can be sent person-to-person with enhanced privacy, fast transaction rates, and relatively minimal fees.

When you use Bitcoin Cash, there is no centralized, government-sanctioned monetary system or central bank policy that dictates its use. Bitcoin Cash is a decentralized cryptocurrency; it can’t be frozen, seized, or controlled by any third-party agency.

The most optimum way to explain Bitcoin Cash may be to describe its hard fork beginnings briefly.

The Bitcoin Hard Fork

Bitcoin was first conceptualized in 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto as an alternative financial theory in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis. It was first released in January 2009. Nakamoto may be a pseudonym or an alias representing a team of developers.

The blockchain, a kind of public ledger that processes, verifies, and records transactions, makes Bitcoin a decentralized technology. Anyone utilizing a computer can mine, buy, or exchange the Bitcoin cryptocurrency.

However, the Bitcoin blockchain and ecosystem network is notoriously slow. Each Bitcoin block is 1MB. So, the more people who try to transact on it, the slower the entire blockchain becomes. The blockchain network can process about seven transactions per second. Visa can process 65,000 transactions every second.

The Bitcoin ecosystem community erupted into a cryptocurrency civil war over the processing speed issue. One faction voted to initialize a hard fork of Bitcoin to improve processing speeds, creating Bitcoin Cash in the process.

A Bitcoin Cash block size is 8MB. The larger sized blocks enable faster verification, transaction, and overall processing fees. While the original Bitcoin is more suitable for investment, Bitcoin Cash is the decentralized cryptocurrency variation of fiat currencies.
Acquiring Bitcoin Cash

You can mine Bitcoin Cash or buy them via a cryptocurrency exchange.