Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is a blockchain-based decentralized digital money (Cryptocurrency). BCH has no government regulation, no actual assets to back it up, and no paper or other tangible note to represent it the same like Bitcoin (BTC).
Bitcoin Cash is one of the hundreds of altcoins. The words altcoin refers to any cryptocurrency that isn't BTC. BCH is as different from BTC as the US dollar is from the Euro, Canadian or Australian dollars.
What is the origin of BCH?
Bitcoin Cash is a fork of the initial BTC that was created to solve difficulties with the currency's use for payments as it grew in popularity.
The initial BTC blockchain limited BTC blocks to 1MB of data storage, resulting in long transaction processing times. As the coin's popularity rose up, more transactions put greater load on the blockchain network which the processing much slower.
In order to solve this processing issue, BTC miners and engineers launched Bitcoin Cash as a split in the BTC network.
Numerous blockchains (with varied standards for speed and transparency) exist to support various cryptocurrencies. BCH is a cryptocurrency that operates on the BTC blockchain but has a different route than BTC. The quantity of BCH is restricted to 21 million coins which is the same as for BTC.
The update to the blockchain that resulted in BCH is known as a "hard fork," since the new protocols prevent the old fork from processing and transferring information sent down the new fork. It's similar to when Instagram updates and your previous iOS no longer supports the app. BTC and BCH are then two separate cryptocurrencies due to the blockchain split.
The block size of BCH has been raised to 8MB to allow for more and quicker transactions and to maintain the cryptocurrency viable as a payment alternative as it scales.
The higher block size was the greatest answer for certain developers to Bitcoin's restrictions. Others were apprehensive to raise the block size because they feared it would make it more difficult for people to complete transactions and allow a small number of organizations to dominate Bitcoin transactions.
The advantages and disadvantages of Bitcoin Cash
Advantages:
Not susceptible to inflation or volatility as a result of Federal Reserve operations.
As a decentralized payment alternative, increased transaction speed allows for more scaling.
Lower transaction fees for buying, selling, and trading are often associated with more transaction access.
Disadvantages:
After a large rise in 2017, the value of the coin has grown slowly since its launch.
It's only a fraction of the cost of Bitcoin.
Because of the computer power required for transactions, there is the potential for power concentration.
Significant amounts of energy are used to supply computational power for mining and transaction processing.
Is BCH worth of investment ?
Yes, the BCH is worth of investment and will make more easier your crypto transactions. It is true that both BTC and BCH may be used to spend crypto like for example making purchases. But, in the long term, BTC is likely to be the best option for direct purchases because it was built particularly to permit speedier transaction processing as the market increases.
Summary
Limitations were sure to emerge as it grew more extensively used and accepted. Concerned about BTC's ability to scale to meet rising demand, developers devised competing solutions, split into factions, and BCH was born as an alternative currency with enhanced transaction capacity.
If you believe in BTC's concept of a decentralized, peer-to-peer payment system, BCH might be the key to making that vision a reality.