What is the Difference between Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash

May 19, 2019 Quick read

Long before people still could not expect what digital cash could possibly do, a revolutionary cryptocurrency known as the Bitcoin took birth in FinTech and you can only wonder what happened next - The Bitcoin took the world by a storm and literally paved a pathway for new virtual currency innovations to come into light.

Although initially, only a few people were quite sold with the idea of Bitcoin, the Bitcoin went on to become one of the most popular currencies to ever exist. The astonishing fact about this development was that it achieved its immense success all in a period of 7 years and it was not long after that, that people turned to Online Bitcoin Exchanges resulting in the widespread adoption of Bitcoin.

Today, the number of Bitcoin miners and crypto enthusiasts who own Bitcoins and employ its encrypted mechanisms for trading lie somewhere in the range of millions.

Undeniably, that is an incredible advancement for cryptocurrencies and yet, Bitcoin's dealing speed somewhere does not quite live up to its name and lags behind at around only 7 transactions and that too only every second. As there were many Bitcoin-crazed traders in the crypto market in 2017, there were a significant number of transactions that were being instigated per second so it was a no-brainer that something had to be done to the transactional speed of Bitcoin exchanges.

Determining the Variation in the Volume of Bitcoin Transactions

At one time, Bitcoin's Blocksize limit was a mere 1 MB and today, it has gone upto 2 MB. Every person linked to the crypto market seems to have only one question in their mind for this - If so many people wish to get trading with Bitcoins then why are they not increasing the Blocksize limit, let's say upto 820K MB?

Well this is because of the number of eager crypto aficionados waiting in line to partake in Bitcoin exchanges. Increasing the Blocksize limit will do no good as more the number of blocks, more will be the data required to process a single transaction.

Owing to this underlying issue, decentralization will be imperative and the small nodes on the network will not be potent enough to keep up or handle the increased data.

The Resolution for the Blocksize Issue

Since the issue of transactions was raised, it pierced a hole in the Bitcoin industry as it bore differences between two split groups where one group asserted that Bitcoin did not seem like a cash solution for everyday buying and selling whereas the other group purported that the Bitcoin was meant to reach unimaginable heights.

To put rest to all such claims, Bitcoin was split by "Hard Fork" simply to create a new version that would be popularly known as Bitcoin Cash. Utilizing the same codebase, the Bitcoin Cash is much like Bitcoin except it holds a Blocksize limit of upto 8 MB. With such a vast transactional limit, a roundabout of 2 million transactions can be carried out per day using Bitcoin Cash.

The Adaptation Phase

Once Bitcoin Cash had ventured into the crypto market, everyone wanted to know what they were going to do with their Bitcoins now that the fork had been implemented? The simplest answer for this was the process of cloning the wallets.

The last block to be mined officially before the fork happened was used to determine this - Post the fork, if the user owned any Bitcoins prior to the last block would essentially get the exact same amount albeit in Bitcoin Cash. This happens because the user has a similar Bitcoin that shares the same private key but only this time, the key would be available in two completely different wallets.

Because of this, the user can utilize the same private key to avail any transaction using another currency. The user won't be taking money out of a single wallet, they will also face rebate in the second wallet.

However, as amazing as this sounds, it completely is not so. After the amount has shot up, the value of the currency will go down indicating that the fork will not really be advantageous for all. After from this, Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash are not exactly interchangeable - They are two very separate cryptocurrencies that can operate without each other at ease.

Bitcoin vs. Bitcoin Cash - Marking the Differences

While Online Cryptocurrency Exchanges have become extremely popular, it is important to draw out notable differences between these two top cryptocurrencies.

·       Name

The creators of Bitcoin Cash have coined the word "Cash" to "Bitcoin" not because it is another variation of Bitcoin. No, they aim to sustain Bitcoin Cash as a stand-alone form of cash.

·       Pros/Cons

Unlike Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash holds a Blocksize limit of upto 8 MB indicating that higher number of transactions can take place a lower price.

On the contrary, Bitcoin has a large number of mining pools so no lone miner with about 50% can hand regulate all of them single-handedly. As Bitcoin Cash is centralized, this does not make any sense as BCH has only 3 mining pools that cumulatively form more than 51% - Playing the stakes will be a hard call owing to the fact that all the possible potentials of Bitcoin Cash remain in the hands of these three mining pools.

·       Technical Disparity

As Bitcoin cash knows what it lacks in comparison to Bitcoin because of its centralized system's tendencies, it has formed protect measures such as On-Chain Scalability, Emergency Difficult Adjustment (EDA) and New Transaction Signatures that will bridge its cons and finally, pose as a secure currency for all.

So, although Bitcoin is a great cryptocurrency no doubt, Bitcoin Cash is cited to be a future world domination cryptocurrency that will mobilize the market cap and give Bitcoin a huge run for its money.