History of Bitcoin Cash (BCH)

As a noobie to cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin cash, in particular, my curiosity drives me in search of more knowledge about Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and other cryptocurrencies. I stumble upon the most comprehensive, detailed, and well-written article about Bitcoin cash since my taking interest in the currency, written by David Hamilton on security.io which I felt it reveals important information worth knowing. David Hamilton detailed the origin of Bitcoin cash, the intrigue controversy leading to its creation, and the game players that stood to ensure Bitcoin cash saw the light of the day.

The history of Bitcoin Cash begins on the background of a debate on the problem of Bitcoin scalability concerns. Scalability has always been an issue for Bitcoin developers leading to 2017, the situation was at the point where something had to be done because Bitcoin’s network technical capabilities seem obsolete. It was calculated that the average size of a block on Bitcoin’s blockchain was less than 100 KB in 2010. This size of the average block rise to around 600k in 2015. This caused a major problem to the network as the numbers of unconfirmed transactions buildup wreaked havoc on the network leading to long transaction times and high g fees.

The situation degenerates such that by 2017, there were multiple cases of transaction fees being higher than the actual Bitcoin sent or received. Transaction times also was taking longer days to complete during this congestion. As it was Bitcoin was unable to scale up to function as the electronic cash system Satoshi envisioned in this state.

Given the above situation, the Bitcoin community was divided on how to handle this problem. According to David Hamilton's article, Some proposed to increase the average block size to accommodate more transactions. While others suggested that the protocol excludes certain parts of the transaction to fit more data into the blockchain. Critically, this lead players in the Bitcoin community to take sides as proponents and opponents.

Prominent proponents of increased block sizes such as Roger Ver argued that as it is, Bitcoin has failed it functions as a medium for daily transactions and its original purpose as a peer-to-peer electronic cash system. This incident sparkled furry of debate between proponents and opponents of the increase Bitcoin block sizes until the world's largest mining pool, Bitmain weighs in on the issue. Bitmain influence played a large role in seeing the creation of Bitcoin cash. When it was clear that there won't be any consensus in the argument, the Bitcoin community split into two, then consistently Bitcoin cash BCH was launch in July 2017 as a result of a hard fork to the original Bitcoin. Bitcoin cash BCH Is born.

To kick start the use of the new coin, Bitcoin holders exchange or swapped their coins for Bitcoin cash at an equivalent rate. Users could claim their BCH at participating exchanges. Wisely enough, at creation, the total amount of Bitcoin Cash equals that of Bitcoin at 21 million coins. However, Bitcoin Cash was met with mixed reactions and feelings in the market. The coin started In the market at a respectable price point of $900. Given the support of the mining community and Bitmain, the coin was able to gain major acceptance within the sector. Thus In December 2017, Bitcoin Cash reached an all-time high of $4,091.

Bitcoin cash BCH has had trouble all along, within a year of its creation Bitcoin Cash experienced a hard fork inside a hard fork. The reason for this split was over a plan to integrate smart contracts onto the blockchain and increased the average block size again. This is what resulted in the creation of the twin sister of Bitcoin Cash (BCH) called Bitcoin Cash SV (Satoshi Vision). As it is now Bitcoin cash is twins, which are Bitcoin cash (BCH) ABC and Bitcoin Cash SV.

Knowing the history of Bitcoin cash BCH, do you think another hard fork in an already hard forked coin necessary at this stage of Bitcoin cash BCH, let me know your thoughts on the comment section.