To the outside world, BCH may be considered the most successful branch of primitive Bitcoin. Although there are still many dead or lingering IFO coins also adopting the "Bitcoin" name (such as BTG, BCD, etc.), there is no doubt that BCH is the only Bitcoin that has been split from the Bitcoin community. Branch, this is determined by the attributes of BCH, community consensus, development, and history. Many people even think that BCH is the real Bitcoin.

Bitcoin history

Bitcoin was originally created in 2009 by an anonymous person named Satoshi Nakamoto. After the 2008 global financial crisis, Satoshi Nakamoto argued that currencies should be decentralized and uncontrolled.

The idea of ​​Bitcoin has successfully attracted the attention of many geeks. This group is known as cryptopunk, and many of them are now hardcore supporters of Bitcoin Cash. They were originally those who actively followed the Satoshi white paper. Bitcoin was originally a decentralized peer-to-peer electronic cash system, which was designed to replace a centralized banking system, especially in cross-border transactions. Early Bitcoin supporters often "bragged" about the speed and transaction costs of sending Bitcoin from different countries.

However, with the gradual growth of bitcoin, the situation in 2017 has changed rapidly, and 2017 is a year of bitcoin. The price of Bitcoin has skyrocketed against the U.S. dollar and other fiat currencies, but Bitcoin is easily congested because many new users have bought Bitcoin.

During the bull market in 2017, the transaction cost of Bitcoin became quite expensive, difficult to control, and the transaction speed became very slow. It may take several hours to complete a transaction. Because of these problems, many original supporters of Bitcoin have disillusioned with the Bitcoin network, and they have begun to question whether Bitcoin can support all transactions today. In order to "realize" Bitcoin's original vision of being a decentralized peer-to-peer electronic cash, some well-known community members put forward suggestions to increase the block cap (expansionist).

Roger Ver, chief executive of Bitcoin.com, is one of the main figures in the proposal. Expansionists believe that it is a good idea to increase Bitcoin's block cap from 1 MB to 8 MB, which will allow Bitcoin to be able to process more transactions and will also reduce the transaction costs that many users complain about.

However, this proposal was opposed by the Bitcoin core team led by a community member (Lightning). Those who hold the "opposition" view believe that as the transaction costs are lower, increasing the block cap will increase the cost of miners, and they worry that in this case, the entire Bitcoin mining will not be profitable. They also said that Bitcoin has been considered "digital gold" and its main use has shifted to "storage of value."

Neither camp can find a solution that both parties consider acceptable. For this reason, the expansionist finally created the original Bitcoin on August 1, 2017, a hard fork occurred at block height 478557, and the "new" Bitcoin that appeared later was named Bitcoin Cash. They use the name Bitcoin Cash because they believe that Bitcoin was originally used as cash. The name "cash" behind "Bitcoin" is to honor the original vision and purpose of Bitcoin itself.

Bitcoin Cash

On May 15, 2018, BCH successfully carried out the planned upgrade again, and Bitcoin Cash raised the block limit again. Currently, Bitcoin Cash has a block limit of 32 MB. In contrast, BTC can only process 4.4 transactions per second (TPS), while BCH can process 116 transactions per second.

Except for the differences in speed and transaction costs, Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash are not technically very different. They have many similarities. Scripts, blockchain browsers, and even BCH's transaction addresses are very similar (or even the same) as Bitcoin. Many BCH supporters often call BTC "Bitcoin Core" and BCH "Real Bitcoin". Of course, the two communities have argued countless times about the naming issue since the birth of BCH.

BCH community

Bitcoin Cash does not have a "founder" because it is the original version of Bitcoin. Since the birth of Bitcoin Cash, many former Bitcoin developers have been involved in BCH development, such as Gavin Andresen, a well-known developer who moved from BTC to BCH. In fact, Gavin has been since February 2016. Leaving the BTC community will no longer provide it with code.

Another prominent supporter of BCH is Roger Ver, CEO of Bitcoin.com. Due to his positive performance in promoting BCH in many digital currency conferences, Roger is probably the most prominent face of BCH supporters. There is also Wu Jihan, the founder of Bitmain. As a well-known mining giant in the industry, Wu Jihan is also a strong supporter and holder of BCH.

BCH realistic adoption

Before deciding whether to invest in BCH, users should also understand whether BCH is adopted in reality. BCH is actually one of the most used digital currencies. Many Bitcoin-supported wallet services also generally accept Bitcoin Cash. You can also easily buy BCH on Binance, Coinbase Pro, Bithumb, and many major exchanges.

In addition to the digital currency industry, BCH is also used by many restaurants and hotels around the world, and countries such as India, Venezuela and Australia have started to use BCH on a large scale. The popular hotel booking site Travala.com has also recently adopted BCH as a payment method.

Conclusion

Whether Bitcoin Cash can eventually surpass BTC in terms of popularity and market value remains to be seen. However, long-term investment in BCH is still a good choice.