Today marks a very important point on the history of Bitcoin.
Essentially, Bitcoin just split into 2 separate currencies - the original Bitcoin, and Bitcoin Cash.
In yesterday's post about the bitcoin hardfork I summarized the events in a simplified manner and got many positive comments about it.
Today, after all these exciting events are over, I want to share a quick recap with you, so that even someone with little crypto knowledge is updated about what's going on with Bitcoin.
For a summary about the hardfork and what Bitcoin Cash is all about, please visit my previous post.
I will not go into detail about it again, but just a brief explanation:
The Bitcoin network needed to be scaled, to increase the transaction speed. In order to do that, they want to activate SegWit at the end of August.
A certain group of Bitcoiners didn't agree with that scaling proposal, and instead wanted to form their own currency: Bitcoin Cash.
Timeline - Bitcoin Fork Day August 1
- As promised, the fork started at 12:20pm UTC. (The pivotal period began at 12:37 with block number 478,558).
- Then, it was just a matter of time to wait until the first block of Bitcoin Cash would be mined.
It took much longer than expected because the software continued with the same difficulty that is used to mine Bitcoin blocks, which is obviously quite high. - But then, at 6.14 pm finally the first Bitcoin Cash block was mined, containing 6,985 transactions.
- Shortly after, Bitcoin Cash launched on several exchange platforms like Kraken, OKCoin, TheRockTrading and more.
Bitcoin Hardfork - Conclusion
During this whole day, the Bitcoin price remained relatively stable at around $2700-2800.
Many were concerned that the Fork could cause a lot of chaos and that the Bitcoin price might crash - but actually, nothing sincere happened.
There are now 2 seperate currencies, Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash, and we can only wait and see how this split system will develop in the future.
For now, you should still stay away from Bitcoin Transactions (at least until tomorrow), but then everything will slowly return to normal in the crypto world.
Opinions about the Fork and Bitcoin Cash
As I've mentioned above, the Fork has created a huge debate and essentially split the Bitcoin community.
There have been countless speculations about the outcome of the fork - now that it's all over, let's look at some opinions and reactions:
“There are many misconceptions about Bitcoin Cash and what it represents. To be clear, Bitcoin is not forking. Rather, some developers have created a new digital currency and formulated an effective means of distributing it, by giving it to everyone with an existing Bitcoin balance.While the markets will ultimately decide, I think there is little chance that Bitcoin Cash will be successful in the long-term.
It may have increased capacity, but several issues remain. First, Bitcoin Cash has not solved scaling. It has merely kicked the can down the road with slightly larger blocks but still lacks a credible technology to scale to massively larger numbers of users. Second, Bitcoin will retain the network of integrated services that make the Bitcoin network useful to businesses and consumers.
With no substantial enhancements compared with Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash is unlikely to be integrated into those same services, given the substantial expense for businesses operating them to do so.”
-Ryan Taylor, CEO of DASH
“Whether we will list Bitcoin Cash as a new trading pair depends on the demand. If demand is big we should consider adding it definitely...No one should lose Bitcoin Cash on our platform.”-Eugene Kovalyk, Chief Marketing Officer of CEX.io
“People who are going to benefit from Bitcoin Cash are the ones who see it as free money, so they can then invest in something else. It's going to be a race to see who can sell it the fastest.”-Perry Woodin, CEO of Node40
"Bitcoin cash has a chance to become the dominant cryptocurrency contingent upon its ability to gain trust and support from both current and new players as well as security of its network. Due to, at least temporary, solution of the scalability issues, bitcoin cash could attract more new capital to the entire crypto space, thus helping increase overall market cap."-Borovykh of Blockchain Driven
"There are people with billions of dollars of skin in the game,. And they will ultimately go with the superior bitcoin network, and the market will follow."-Arthur Hayes, CEO of BitMex
“Bitcoin's best days are ahead of it and we'll see a lot of growth post fork. Now that lightning is enabled, we have a lot of good applications coming.”-Charles Hoskinson, CEO of Input Output HK
“There are pros and cons to everything. The downside of a split is that Bitcoin loses part of its ecosystem, and network effects are so important to this industry. That said, this isn’t a zero-sum game, and it’s more than possible to see both chains flourish in parallel.”-Rob Viglione, ZenCash co-founder
Bitcoin Cash price development
The last 2 days, Bitcoin Cash was valued around $300 or just below that.
Between July 31st and August 1, the BCH price then dropped to about $220.
After the successful hardfork today and when some exchange platforms launched BCH trading, the price then spiked to almost $400.
Currently, the price has settled to about $360.
How will the Bitcoin Cash price develop in the future?
Well, that's the question the whole crypto world is asking itself today.
As you can see from the statements above, some people think that Bitcoin Cash will essentially fail and not become a relevant currency at all. Others think that BCH is supported by many and could play an important role in the future of bitcoin and cryptocurrency.
Only time will tell how BCH will develop, and if more exchanges will start to accept it once demand rises.
What's your opinion about Bitcoin Cash? And if you've received some free BCH, will you sell it immediately or hold it?
© Sirwinchester