What Is Bitcoin Cash?
In the late 1990s, Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman predicted the rise of electronic cash. As of mid-September 2017, the market capitalization for all cryptocurrencies amounted to $137 billion. Today, cryptocurrencies have a much larger user base than when bitcoin was originally introduced in 2009. Growing mainstream acceptance creates a need for miners to process millions of transactions per day. Enter: bitcoin cash.
Read an important announcement from about Bitcoin Cash from Bitcoin.com
What is bitcoin cash?
Bitcoin cash (BCH), like its predecessor bitcoin (BTC), is a peer-to-peer electronic payment system that is supported by blockchain technology and decentralized network of computers. The cryptography-based system processes, verifies and records electronic payment transactions without relying on trusted third parties such as financial institutions. Bitcoin cash lowers transaction costs by removing third parties who mediate disputes between buyers and merchants. It decreases fraud by requiring security protocols such as proof-of-work and digital signatures that are verified on a publicly-distributed ledger known as blockchain.
Bitcoin cash was created on August 1, 2017 after a hard-fork split from bitcoin. BCH features a block size limit of 8 megabytes (MB) compared to bitcoin’s 1 MB. The 8 MB block size limit enables BCH miners to process more transactions on the payment network. Proponents argue that BCH’s larger block size leads to faster transactions, lower fees and improved scalability. Bitcoin cash is not backed by any government or central bank.
Thus far, it’s an unregulated financial instrument, although government and banking authorities in the United States, China, Russia and other developed countries are reviewing or implementing steps aimed at regulating cryptocurrencies.
Cryptocurrencies offer several advantages compared to traditional fiat currencies:
Difficult to counterfeit
Transactions are continuously validated by a network
Audit trail of all transactions
Senders and recipients can stay anonymous
Limited supply
Divisible (Can send 1 BCH or .0001 BCH)
Easy to store
Easy to send
Homogenous