I
believe that the next generation is of Cryptocurrency as they are
easily transportable, little to zero transaction fees, no human
intervention between payor and payee, high anonymity, and even
functionality. Money evolves, like anything else, and the natural
evolution of money is always as a store of value that is easier to
move, more secure, and more private. Bitcoin Cash is the brand-new
entrant in digital currency. It was created on August 1, 2017 through
a "hard fork." I.e. by
the splitting of the bitcoin blockchain. A
hard fork is when a digital currency splits into two separate
currencies. In this case, the original bitcoin split into bitcoin
cash as a means of dealing with disagreements in the community over
how the technology behind the currency should run.
Everyone who held bitcoin before the split was entitled to the same
number of "bitcoin cash" tokens, effectively receiving a
free dividend. The blockchain split is the culmination of a long-term
scaling debate within the digital currency community. Before the
split, only 1 megabyte of transactions could be processed at any one
time, which led to delays. Thus literally Bitcoin will be basically
unaffected by the creation of the new cryptocurrency.
Who
exactly was given access to Bitcoin Cash? How can we obtain it??
These are the questions arise in many minds when heard of the
blockchain split. As of August 1, holders of bitcoin who either
controlled their private keys or had accounts with exchanges that
were supporting Bitcoin Cash should have had access to an equal
amount of cryptocurrency on both the bitcoin blockchain and the newly
created Bitcoin Cash blockchain. Eventhough there
exists some open source and noncustodial bitcoin wallet platforms
such as Breadwallet that have provided users with an easy method of
obtaining Bitcoin
Cash,
holders of bitcoin on non-custodial platforms usually need to undergo
a manual process and use their private keys to be credited with
Bitcoin
Cash.
Since Bitcoin Cash has yet to articulate its unique value
proposition in a clear and well-defined manner its not safe. So I
think its good to wait until the Bitcoin Cash market stabilizes as
now there exists no legitimate and secure Bitcoin Cash wallet. I.e.
when Bitcoin Cash is withdrawn from a wallet or an exchange, there is
no alternative Bitcoin Cash wallet that users can utilize apart from
exchanges that support Bitcoin Cash trading to store Bitcoin Cash.
Thus like many things in the cryptocurrency space, that answer is
unclear and it may take a year to get clear.
One
of the big problems faced by "bitcoin cash" is a lack of
support from the mining community. Miners are needed to verify
transaction on the bitcoin blockchain and this requires a large
amount of computing power. The process is meant to take roughly 10
minutes, but the less power that is available, the longer the process
takes. After the blockchain split, it took more than 5 hours for the
first block of "bitcoin cash" transactions to be mined.
This indicates that only a small number of miners are working on the
new token. So far, only 12 blocks of transactions have been mined.
The last block was around 10 hours ago, at the time of writing,
according to data website Blockdozer Explorer. So far, only one of
these blocks has taken advantage of the larger transaction limit
offered by "bitcoin cash."
Bitcoin
Cash is an attempt to solve processing issues by allowing blocks to
be processed in 8-megabyte units, rather than the one-megabyte block
the older version of bitcoin uses. Because Bitcoin Cash is supported
by a minority of developers and industry specialists, its future is
uncertain and it will likely be prone to volatility. I think the fork
is a healthy process because it's similar to how evolution works in
nature and will help in adapting itself to changes.
