Before starting I would like to clarify that this post is not intended to compare the Bitcoin forks or claim any of them to be superior. This article is just an attempt to explain briefly what exactly are the 3 Bitcoin variants and how exactly are they different.
The reason for writing this post was that despite tracking closely for over 3 years, all the crypto news related to market analysis, launch of a new coin, Staking, DeFI etc I had no idea why there were 3 Bitcoins. I knew vaguely that at some point the original Bitcoin got Forked and then it got Forked again and that is how 2 other Bitcoins were created. If someone asked me why did the forking happen or how are the forked bitcoins different from original Bitcoin, I would have drawn a blank. As I check Coingecko about 100 times a day I know very well that all the forks feature in the top 10 coins by market cap so it’s not like they are some insignificant alts.
The reason I never bothered to research about the forked Bitcoins was the inherent bias I had that the original is always the best and any forked variant will be inferior and when you have the best why bother with the rest.
I probably would have continued in this blissful ignorance for many years to come if I had not come across Read.Cash platform that rewards it’s user in BCH. Once I actually received some BCH I decided to explore a bit about what these forks were and how they were different.
Also note that officially there are more than 100 Bitcoin forks. I am not kidding, seriously Bitcoin got forked more than 100 times but still keeps going. These include Big Bitcoin, Bitcoin Atom and Bitcoin Candy. I do not consider these forks in the same level as the 3 main brothers, we can at best consider them as distant cousins and they will not be considered as family in this article. My apologies if you are a Bitcoin Candy fan and feel bad that it did not get the due importance.
#1 The Elder Brother- BITCOIN (BTC)
Well this big daddy of all coins was the first crypto ever and is probably the first coin anyone gets familiarized with and for a large number of maximalists this is the last coin as well.
When was it Created – 3rd Jan 2009
Who is the Founder/ Creator/ CEO – Satoshi Nakamoto. It’s an alias and nobody knows who this person really is. Many people have claimed to be Satoshi but the majority were found to be frauds. Many people consider Bitcoin as the best coin as it doesn’t have any real owner so it can’t be manipulated or influenced by greed or corruption of an individual.
Supply Limit – There is a cap on max supply of 21 M, of which about 18.4 M have already been mined.
Market Cap- $221 B on 18th Aug 2020. Since it’s launch it has steadily retained it’s position as the top crypto by market cap.
What exactly is Forking?
Before we go and look at the next brother we need to take a look at what exactly is Forking. Simply put forking means duplicating a coin into two sets and this happens when the community behind a project does not agree on a particular change and the only way to proceed is split the team into 2 groups each continuing with the set of protocols they consider best.
#2 The Middle Brother- BITCOIN CASH (BCH)
Why was BCH Forked?- Towards the end of 2015 a core Bitcoin developer called Peter Wuille proposed the idea of SegWit (Segregated Witness). Its intention was to reduce the transaction size so speed can be improved. Low transaction speed was already identified as a potential issue which hwas expected to get worse with rise in number of concurrent users. This was originally thought to be a soft fork which would not need creation of a separate set of coins. Many developers in the community were not happy with SegWit and they went ahead with a Hard Fork in Aug 2017.
When did BCH came into Existence – 1st Aug 2017
Supply Limit- 21 M. The same as Bitcoin, in fact when the fork happened all Bitcoin holders received the same number of BCH as the BTC they possessed.
Market Cap- $5.6 B. It is number 6 by market cap.
Who is the Founder/ Creator/ CEO- This might come as surprise to many of you but Satoshi Nakamoto is considered the founder of Bitcoin Cash as well as this is a fork of his product. Some people consider Rick Falkvinge and Roger Ver as the CEO of Bitcoin Cash but that is not true as BCH does not have an official CEO. (This is as per my research and if there exists any formal record of anyone else besides Satoshi being formal owner of BCH, I will be happy to edit this)
What were the main changes in BCH over BTC- There were 3 main changes done with the intention of improving transaction speed:
a. Increase the block size from 1MB to 8MB
b. DDA (difficulty adjustment algorithm) change to improve hash rate
#3 The Youngest Brother- BITCOIN SV (BSV)
Why was BSV Forked?- Towards end of 2018 major differences started appearing between two rival camps in Bitcoin Cash. One group was led by Roger Ver and Jihan Wu while the other camp was led by Craig Wright and Calvin Ayre. As these differences could not be reconciled the split happened in Nov 2018.
When did BSV came into Existence – 15th Nov 2018
Supply Limit- 21 M. The same as Bitcoin.
Market Cap- $4 B. It is number 9 by market cap.
Who is the Founder/ Creator/ CEO- Again Satoshi Nakamoto, while Craight Wright is the most active supporter. You might know that Craig claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto but so far he has failed to prove it.
What were the main changes in BSV over BCH- The block size was increased further to 128MB.
I would like to end this by adding a bit about my personal experience. I have strong faith in the long term value of BTC and will continue to hold it. I am well aware about the limitation it has in transaction speed so I don’t plan to use it for daily use will keep it as a long term investment only to be sold in case of emergency.
I started using BCH once I received a bit on ReadCash and one thing I found remarkable was my first withdrawal. The moment I pressed the send button the next instant I saw a pop up on my Atomic Wallet saying “Incoming BCH”. I was really surprised I had never seen a transaction get executed so fast. I had become accustomed to wait 5-10 mins after making a transaction. I clearly see the value in using BCH for your frequent transaction.
I plan to include BTC and BCH both in my crypto portfolio with BTC being in the cold storage and BCH in hot storage with more frequent usage.
I have still not tried out BSV but I am open to try it out sometime in the future.
I hope you found this article useful and in case you think I missed out anything significant do let me know in the comments section.
Cheers,
SamBTC
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Good article