Does Bitcoin Cash's Success Signal to Cryptocurrency

Bitcoin's price climbed to a new record high of more than $ 8,000 Friday before falling precipitously to around $ 5,600. At the same time, bitcoin cash, the three-month-old cryptocurrency cousin of bitcoin, also quadrupled in value overnight.

Now, some analysts are wondering if the recent success of bitcoin cash indicates there are deeper rifts in the bitcoin community that may play out in different ways.

The past several weeks have been tumultuous for bitcoin. First, bitcoin developers, miners, and investors waited anxiously as an impending hard fork associated with the SegWit2x protocol approached.

Then, just days before the hard fork was finalized, the proponents of the split called the whole thing off, pointing to a desire for unity across the different groups with an interest in the future of the cryptocurrency.

Scaling Question at Heart of Conflict
The fundamental reason for the disputes among bitcoin developers, miners, and investors is the question of how to scale bitcoin in order to accommodate additional transactions. Those looking to improve the cryptocurrency's ability to handle additional transactions say Bitcoin's software is in need of an upgrade.

These proponents of hard forking generally believe the currency must be properly scaled with software updates if it is ever going to catch on in the mainstream payment world. There has been one hard fork.

Three months ago, a hard fork resulted in the development of bitcoin cash. The fact that a second hard currency was planned, and that bitcoin cash has made gains while the original bitcoin faltered, points to an underlying conflict in the bitcoin community.