TL;DR: The scheduled Bitcoin Cash (BCH) network upgrade for 15 May 2019 executed at UNIX timestamp 1557921600, 12pm UTC, enabling consensus rules changes for features such as Schnorr Signatures, a first for the Bitcoin community. It’s also the first BCH hard fork since last November’s contentious chain split, and was widely anticipated by investors, developers, miners, exchanges, and merchants.

More Spice: One Crypto Dithered for a Decade, Another Begins its Schnorr Signatures Journey

Bitcoin Cash Upgrade Complete, Schnorr Signatures Implemented

At 5am in Los Angeles, 8am in New York, 9pm in Tokyo, from India to Australia and all parts between, cryptocurrency enthusiasts watched time tickers, monitored Telegram groups and other social media, discussing the possible implications of the BCH network upgrade on Wednesday, 15 May 2019.

Perhaps the most publicized feature of the upgrade concerned Schnorr Signatures, which are considered a milestone in crypto circles for transaction efficiency and privacy. Other features included correcting Segwit address recovery from the last upgrade. Noted video producer Collin Enstad live streamed the event as of 12pm UTC, following the discovery of another 6 blocks after that would have to be found in order for changes to take effect.

Those 6 blocks were found within 20 minutes, and 2 more were mined shortly after. By 30 minutes into the hour, the upgrade was in full effect. The Electron Cash Wallet team only hours prior released their implementation of Schnorr. The broader community was also keen to cheer independent developer Mark B. Lundeberg for his work in bringing Schnorr Signatures to the upgrade, calling his work “flawless.”

Here's a Schnorr signature transaction on #BitcoinCash mainnet! Happy upgrade day everyone! Thanks for all the great workhttps://t.co/mqgTlEuGgv — Gabriel Cardona (@cgcardona) May 15, 2019

Lundeberg the night before told CoinSpice, “it pretty much works like this: wait until you see the first block on or after the magic timestamp (height=N). Then wait for five more blocks to be mined: once block N+5 is mined, the upgrade is activated and Schnorrs can be broadcasted. Block N+6 will be the first able to contain Schnorr txns,” he explained.

***

UPDATE: A quick patch was added to the ABC client code by developer Amaury Séchet on Wed, May 15, 14:17, concerning a possible exploit leading to spam and congestion. No transactions seem to have been lost. Developers describe the bug as old and involved with mining, having nothing to do with the upgrade in particular.

***

DISCLOSURE: The author holds cryptocurrency as part of his financial portfolio, including BCH.

CONTINUE THE SPICE and check out our piping hot VIDEOS. Our podcast, The CoinSpice Podcast, has amazing guests. Follow CoinSpice on Twitter. Join our Telegram feed to make sure you never miss a post. Drop some BCH at the merch shop — we’ve got some spicy shirts for men and women. Don’t forget to help spread the word about CoinSpice on social media.