A look back at Bitcoin Cash's history and forward into its future!

But first:

Yeah, this article is a bit late!

But it's not my fault! I was doing research when I got distracted....

So... The history!

Bitcoin Cash Forked from Bitcoin at block 478558, on the 1st of August 2017.

Bitcoin Cash was created as a result of the disagreement between two groups over scaling issues. One idea (the best one) being to scale on-chain, by increasing the block size. The other idea isn't even worth mentioning, I think it had to do with nitwit or something.

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) kept focused on the main goal, while also keeping up development.

That good idea, the increased block size one, transformed into what Bitcoin Cash is today, it started as a better bitcoin, but Bitcoin Cash has grown to be so much more.

Bitcoin Cash has been able to keep its principal goal, or prime directive perhaps, which is to provide economic freedom to those who have none all over the world. To become a currency that can help reduce poverty. A currency that can be used by poor people, rich people, merchants, charities, and everybody else in between like you and me, while keeping the use of Bitcoin Cash quick and cheap.

Bitcoin Cash has become a robust blockchain with upgrade methods and standards that seems to be successful in minimizing the drama that’s associated with upgrades and forks in the past.

most of the upgrades that have affected the chain have derived from the planning, standards, and the inclusion of improvements into the protocol every six months.

Those upgrades included technical achievements like Schnorr Signatures, the implementation of a token standard called SLP, and a new difficulty algorithm to name some recent ones.

An adult at only 4 years old.... Ah, they grow up too fast!

Offering a full suite of solutions for cryptocurrency users, having support from thousands of merchants at a worldwide level, and recently introducing Smartbch, a project that aims to tether smart contracts functions to the protocol, Bitcoin Cash is now more mature than ever.

Last November 15th showed though that not everything has been smooth sailing. On that day the chain split again, spawning Bitcoin Cash ABC, which is now hardly worth anything, has a negligible trade volume, and is now frantically grasping the rebranding straw (wants to be called eCash soon) in the hope that it might delay its inevitable demise.

This split resulted in the separation of Bitcoin ABC, led by Amaury Sechet, who was one of the original collaborators of the currency, from the Bitcoin Cash project.

The spawning event had its origin in the discussion around the infrastructure development fund that Bitcoin ABC, the leading node implementation at the time, wanted to adopt, and a new DAA (Difficulty Adjustment Algorithm).

Rejection your honor.... oh wait, that was objection.... well, that's the same right?

However, most of the community rejected the plan that proposed miners concede a part of their block rewards to a central authority of developers to help subsidize development expenses and chose to stay with the original chain’s ruleset.

As all of this happened, the development of the currency didn’t stop. A number of node implementations joined a new node called Bitcoin Cash Node and the devs collectively took over the development tasks of the protocol.

On May 15, 2021, a new update was applied to the BCH chain with success. This update brought a number of important improvements, including the inclusion of an unlimited number of unconfirmed chained transactions.

Also, new measures to add transparency and standards to control what gets upgraded and when, like CHIPs (Cash Improvement Proposals), are designed to avoid new confrontations like the ones that happened in the past.

Bitcoin Cash solved the funding debate the Bitcoin Cash way!

The debate over funding projects, that lead to Bitcoin Cash ABC (BCHA), also gave birth to one of the fundamental projects for Bitcoin Cash this year:

Flipstarter.

(no idea why but this came up searching for Flip Starter in images)

Anywho.... who? Ani!

(yes, a vague starwars referenced word joke no one understands. just because I can!)

Flipstarter is a noncustodial crowdfunding tool that uses BCH.

This new tool showed that the BCH community could thrive using its own means to fund valuable projects for the environment. And it has been successful!

More than 12 projects have collected over $1 million for last August, and that amount has only grown exponentially since that time.

More developments that push Bitcoin Cash forward into the future!

On the institutional side of things, BCH also had some interesting victories, like when Grayscale got the thumbs up to offer shares of its Bitcoin Cash Trust to institutions last August.

Institutional investors can get exposure to BCH without having to worry about custody, apparently something that was holding back many institutional investors who were interested.

Privacy also experienced a big jump, with Cashfusion, a fungibility protocol directed at obscuring cryptocurrency transactions in the Bitcoin Cash chain, reaching a milestone of $3.2 billion anonymized.

Other, possibly more important, and impactful development also went from crowdfunding ideas to implemented reality as well.

Please give my sponsors a look. They've got some awesome stuff for you too!

Decentralized finance is now a part of the Bitcoin Cash "eco-system" too!

Last year, General Protocols, a company dedicated to building decentralized finance (defi) protocols on top of BCH, raised $3 million from strategic investors after launching Anyhedge and Detoken, the first two defi instances of tools designed to operate on top of the BCH protocol.

Smart Bitcoin Cash, got flipstarted (crowdfunded)!

"BCH YOLO" pledged 419.91 BCH, accounting for 42% of the total fundraising amount. @MarcDeMesel, Jiang Zhuoer, @RogerVer, Kim Dotcom, and other KOLs pledged as well.

(TIL: KOL = Key Opinion Leader)

As a result of this crowdfunding, just recently, the new sidechain called Smartbch that uses Bitcoin Cash as its main token was launched, with the ability to run EVM compatible content. This would give Bitcoin Cash, in theory, an equivalent functionality to Ethereum and compatibility.

A sidechain is a blockchain designed for fast and inexpensive transactions with a special relationship with the main chain because of a two-way peg; in this case between Bitcoin Cash and smartBCH.

The newly implemented Smart Bitcoin Cash is a sidechain enabling the development of (d)apps that run at low cost and high speed in the BCH ecosystem.

Never forget the main purpose of Bitcoin Cash either!

Bitcoin Cash didn't forget to focus on the social part of the cryptocurrency spectrum.

Bitcoin Cash has one of the few chains that has presented adoption as one of its first priorities since its beginning.

The whole point of scaling was to enable more people to use Bitcoin Cash through fast transactions with low fees. This trait made Bitcoin Cash especially interesting for third-world countries where users can’t pay high fees to use crypto as currency.

But adoption efforts have been going on and intensifying across the globe in other ways too. The Community, the people, are getting behind BCH and involved in making people aware of Bitcoin Cash and what it can mean for them.

From onboarding organizations, sending people physically out into cities and communities, convincing merchants to adopt BCH, to hosting meetups promoting knowledge and use of cryptos in certain regions.

Read.cash, and Noise.Cash, are also still one of the most successful tools to improve awareness and promote the adoption of Bitcoin Cash.

Other news headlines that (might) help Bitcoin Cash.

Equos, the cryptocurrency exchange of Nasdaq listed crypto firm Diginex, has listed a BCH/USDC trading pair.

Signal, a cross-platform encrypted messaging app, announced that it is accepting cryptocurrency donations including BCH through The Giving Block. All donations received will be used to support the development of the app as well as server and bandwidth costs.

Cryptocurrency adoption, in general, seems to be going forward as well.

Payments giant Paypal is hiring more than 100 crypto-related positions as demand for cryptocurrencies grows.

Paypal’s CEO recently revealed the company’s expansion plans, stating;

“We continue to be really pleased with the momentum we’re seeing on crypto, and we’re obviously adding incremental functionality into that.”

The jobs they're offering range from strategy managers, program managers, blockchain AML analytics managers, and crypto engineering managers, to operations managers, investigators, crypto investigations specialists, crypto legal directors, and crypto tax reporting managers.

A recent report shows the number of global crypto users reached 221 million in June. The number rose from 100 million to 200 million within only four months. This is good news for the future of crypto, and for Bitcoin Cash!

The Future for Bitcoin Cash.

I really don't know many details to tell you the truth. Some people say I look like a crystal ball, but I don't have one that I can use to see the future!

I do know something, though: DECENTRALIZED DEVELOPMENT!

With multiple independent teams of developers delivering software deployments, the future is secure.

Bitcoin Cash can withstand political and social attacks on protocol development. No group or project can usurp control. Multiple deployments also provide redundancy to ensure that the network maintains 100% uptime.

The bitcoincashresearch.org website is a good place to make proposals for changes that require coordination between development teams. For those who want to make changes to the Bitcoin Cash protocol, it is recommended to seek early peer-review and collaborate with other developers.

Smart Bitcoin Cash is going to be a game-changer, according to many, including the big names in Bitcoin Cash. It's so new though that its effects can not be quantified yet. But DeFi is now part of the Bitcoin Cash "eco-system" as they say. DApps are most probably in development as we speak (or type, rather, here on read.cash) taking the biggest of the advantages the Etherium fan crowd wave in Bitcoin Cash supporter's faces and making it part of BCH and better.

The market is settling, recovering, or about to make a bull run towards the end of the year's holiday season.

Most of the losses from the crash a couple of weeks ago have been regained and many expect (read: Hope very very fervently) a Bullish market that will last to mid to end of November. The price at the moment of writing is $536,28 or €452,60 which is 2,5% less than 24hrs ago.

The chart looks promising:

(I've marked the recent low point in the crash for clarity)

I expect our (read.cash's) heroes to reappear, returning from holidays or from working hard at shaping Bitcoin Cash's future.

@MarcDeMesel and @RogerVer have not been heard here on read.cash in the past month or even more. But they're not MIA, getting out of crypto, abandoning read.cash and Bitcoin Cash or anything like that! Don't worry, and stop wrapping tin-foil around your heads! No more conspiracy theories, please!

Mr. De Mesel I have seen, heard, picked up whispers about being very busy and involved with the Smart Bitcoin Cash project and other discussions concerning future developments in the bitcoin universe.

I've read things, and I've heard about things having to do with BU and some.... heated debating about new coins or something.

Anyways, TL;DR: He's busy, he's good, and sooner or later he'll probably have another one of his awesome articles for us to munch on, or another video on his Youtube channel for us to watch, I am sure of it.

So yeah, that's about it from me I think. Happy belated birthday Bitcoin Cash!

Thank you for reading this article. Stay Safe and Stay Happy!!!

@AnonSunamun