In 2009, after the publication of Satoshi Nakamoto’s white paper describing the creation of a digital and fully decentralized p2p system, Bitcoin (BTC) became the first cryptocurrency in the world. Today, bitcoin is a generally accepted alternative currency with a capitalization of over $68 billion, and is used in a multitude of fashions.
However, with increased interest and use, the strain on the network had increased tremendously, which led to a slowdown in transactions and an increase in fees for users. Both issues that were highly unwelcome by the community of users. Obviously, Bitcoin required some form of modernization for further development.
Several solutions were proposed at first. Among them was Segregated Witness, or briefly -SegWit. This was a blockchain upgrade that in essence allowed you to increase the number of transactions over the same period of time. Opponents of SegWit, in turn, proposed to increase the size of the blocks. Developers decided to both implement SegWit and then increase the size of the blocks aftrwards, but this was not enough for the opponents of SegWit.
On August 2, 2017, SegWit was introduced. At the same time as this modernization was implemented, the blockchain split, creating a fork of the original Bitcoin – Bitcoin Cash. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) allowed for the generation of considerably larger block sizes. SegWit, on the other hand, allowed the Bitcoin network to conduct a greater number of transactions than before.
While both cryptocurrencies are essentially one and the same, their biggest difference lies in their respective block sizes. Bitcoin Cash offers a block size of 8 MB. If a BTC block handled around 2500 transactions, with BCH this figure reached over 7000. Therefore, at first glance, Bitcoin Cash’s prospects in terms of scalability looked much better.
However, most of the bitcoin infrastructure (wallets, payment services, etc.) does not support bitcoin cash and considers it as yet another altcoin, rather than a new bitcoin. This means that its use is still limited by speculation on the stock exchanges.
All this leads to the question regarding the real values of BCH. Why should its value grow? At the moment, Bitcoin Cash is supported by a small part of the developer community. The remaining bulk of the participants remain on the side of Bitcoin and SegWit. If you are choosing where to invest your money, you will be better off investing in the original bitcoin. Bitcoin cash can fall at any given time, considering the majority’s attitude towards it as yet another altcoin.
Today, the odds of bitcoin cash failing are relatively low. As long as Bitcoin cannot solve the problem of scalability, high commissions, and transaction speed, bitcoin cash should be under no threat of failing. After all, it has already solved these problems.
Nevertheless, many users still trust the original Bitcoin. Soon, the introduction of the Lightning Network will be implemented, which will fix many of the shortcomings that BTC is known for. If it is implemented successfully, BCH will lose its advantages.
In general, the prospects for the development of Bitcoin Cash are completely dependent on the situation of Bitcoin.
As soon as BTC gains new momentum, BCH is likely to gradually go into oblivion.
To avoid this, the BCH team needs to come up with something revolutionary as quickly as possible.