As Scheduled, Bitcoin Cash Undergoes Hard Fork Splitting the Blockchain In Two Different Cryptocurrencies

On Thursday, November 15, the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) network hard fork ultimately took place wherein the BCH blockchain network split into two resulting in two different cryptocurrencies. The last block mined on the Bitcoin Cash network was at number 556,766.

One version from the two new cryptocurrencies is the long-time implementation Bitcoin ABC (BCHABC) while the other is called as Bitcoin “Satoshi Version” (BCHSV). The upgraded client for BCHABC carries forward the “official” roadmap for Bitcoin Cash. The BCHABC brings a series of technical upgrades to the network. It includes increasing block size by reordering transactions with some additional code to support the interoperability among cryptocurrencies.

However, the other version i.e. Bitcoin SV rejects all these implementations. Instead it plans to restore the retired code from the original Bitcoin protocol while increasing the block size four times from 32MB to 128MB.

However, this has not been like any other hard fork as among the past few weeks the two opposite camps have engaged in a series war for hash power. Hash power is the amount of computer resource given by the supporters to run the cryptocurrency’s blockchain network. In case of split, the crypto version with dominant hash power takes the charge of the network.

The mini pools also seem to be divided over the hard fork. Mining pools like BTC.com, Antpool, and Bitcoin.com are controlling the ABC network. Similarly, SVPool, Coingeek, and Mempool have shown their support for Bitcoin SV.

Craig Wright, the self-acclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto and supporter of Bitcoin SV has issued several threats to the supporters of ABC. In the last few weeks, the “hash war” has heated up with Wright even vowing to destroy the ABC network. Moreover, just minutes before the hard fork took place, the Bitcoin SV had amassed while dominating the hash rate. The SV supporters have even said that they will be mining the empty blocks to oppose the Bitcoin ABC chain till the time they can fatally damage the economic operations of the ABC network.

However, at the time the fork took place, the BCHABC had a significant edge over the SV version with economic and community support. Almost 75% of all BCH node supporters are running ABC, while just 8% are supporting the SV version. Exchanges supporting BCH core have announced that in the near-term, they will list BCHABC as “Bitcoin Cash”.

Several analysts have predicted that the chain with the economic majority will ultimately win out. That means even though Bitcoin SV has an higher hash rate, it could likely see miners moving out due to no economic incentive present there.