Bitcoin Cash Turns One Year Old: Its Triumphs and Tribulations
Jul 29, 2018, 7:40AM
by Mike Dalton
Bitcoin Cash turns one year old this Wednesday. Has it accomplished what it set out to do, and what trials has it faced?
August 1 marks the first anniversary of Bitcoin Cash (BCH), first created as a response to Bitcoin's scalability issues. As it aged, Bitcoin's transactions became slow and expensive, costing $30 per transaction at times, making small payments virtually impossible.
Bitcoin Cash made modifications to Bitcoin's code that would make transactions faster and cheaper. It did so by increasing the block size to make room for more transaction data per block. Bitcoin Cash did manage to solve the problem and has maintained quite low fees and fast transaction times, although this is partly due to the network being less crowded. And although Bitcoin Cash's fees still beat Bitcoin, Bitcoin has managed to reduce its own fees with the advent of the Lightning Network.
Despite Bitcoin Cash's rising popularity, not all of its recognition has been positive. Because Bitcoin Cash is somewhat less valuable than Bitcoin, a lawsuit accused Roger Ver of using Bitcoin.com to mislead users into buying the less valuable altcoin. Additionally, Bitcoin Cash was supposedly an instrument in Coinbase's alleged inside trading.
Bitcoin continues to be forked into derivatives. Some forks attempt to capitalize on Bitcoin's name recognition, while others such as Litecoin, DASH, and Dogecoin have become popular in their own right. But few have come close to the success of Bitcoin Cash, which received a major boost in April and remains in the top four cryptocurrencies as it nears its first birthday.
Disclaimer: information contained herein is provided without considering your personal circumstances, therefore should not be construed as financial advice, investment recommendation or an offer of, or solicitation for, any transactions in cryptocurrencies.
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