Bitcoin Cash

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Bitcoin Cash
Bitcoin Cash.png
symbol BCH
Publishing year 2009 (start of the blockchain) / 2017 (hard fork)
Blockchain 167 GB
Mining SHA-256
Website www.bitcoincash.org

Bitcoin Cash (abbreviation BCH , also BCash ) is a cryptocurrency that on 1 August 2017, a spin-off ( Hard Fork ) from Bitcoin was created network. Bitcoin Cash is the fourth largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.

Spin-off from Bitcoin

The aim of the spin-off from Bitcoin was to increase the block size limit from 1 MB to 8 MB without adopting the SegWit protocol extension. As a result, more transactions per time are possible with Bitcoin Cash than in the Bitcoin network. Both blockchains were identical up to the split (up to block 478558) . Every Bitcoin owner was given access to the same amount of Bitcoin Cash at the time of the fork as long as they had access to their private key .

The inventor and original main developer of Bitcoin Satoshi Nakamoto built a block size limit of 1 MB into the reference implementation in 2010 . This enabled around seven transactions per second to prevent attacks on the network with blocks that were too large. He wrote that the limit could be increased later with a slight code change.

Due to the rapidly growing Bitcoin acceptance, this artificial limit had a disruptive effect. The space in transaction blocks became a precious resource. This resulted in higher transaction fees, longer waiting times for payments and thereby annoying some users. The backlog of unconfirmed transactions can be recognized by the size of the mempool. Only those who paid high fees for the notary could get their transaction certified quickly. Small balances became worthless because the fee for a transaction exceeded the balance.

The scalability of Bitcoin and increasing the block size limits have been discussed for more than four years. Bitcoin XT was created in August 2015 , Bitcoin Unlimited in January 2016 and Bitcoin Classic in February 2016 . None of these alternative clients received a majority of the mining hash power that would be necessary to activate the new rules. Therefore, from the beginning of 2017, consideration was given to activating new rules as a minority, as user-activated hard fork ( UAHF for short ).

In May 2017, a confirmation of future transactions by means of Segregated Witness ( SegWit for short ) from August 1, 2017 was recommended for Bitcoin with GDP 91 . BIP 91 received very broad support (97% in July 2017). Parts of the community saw BIP 91 without a larger block size as a postponement of the problem and the favoring of Bitcoin as an investment instead of as a currency. Others disliked Segregated Witness as being too complex. They warned against making Bitcoin dependent on the Blockstream company.

In June 2017, parts of the community agreed to implement a user-activated hard fork from Bitcoin - to the currency "Bitcoin Cash". In July 2017, Bitcoin ABC was created as a spin-off of the Bitcoin client and as a reference implementation of Bitcoin Cash. The block size limit was raised from 1 MB to 8 MB. For the first time in Bitcoin development, there was a controversial ("contentious") fork. In order to force the split, the rule was implemented that a block larger than 1 MB must be found on August 1, 2017. This became the 1.9 MB block 478559. It is rejected by all Bitcoin clients except Bitcoin ABC. It was also prevented that transactions that a Bitcoin holder commissioned on one of the two blockchains that had been created were triggered by attackers against the will of the holder analogously on the second blockchain ("replay protection").

With a lot of computing power it was achieved that the new blockchain variant was updated - as "Bitcoin Cash" (BCH), while the established "Bitcoin" blockchain later changed the block size with the " Lightning Network " (through the "Segregated Witness" soft fork ) enlarged. Both blockchains share the same transaction history until August 1, 2017. Anyone who previously owned Bitcoin has owned both currencies since then. The prerequisite for access to BCH credit is to use an electronic wallet that supports the BCH blockchain and to import your own access data to the credit from before the split into this wallet.

Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) use a similar address format. While old addresses started with “1” or “3”, Bitcoin Cash introduced the “cashaddr” format. Here addresses begin with “q” or “p” and the prefix “bitcoincash:”. Since both formats continue to apply, wallets also accept the old format.

Address formats

If you accidentally send BCH to a BTC address, it doesn't matter. A key for an old address is also valid on the other block chain. You have to export it and import it elsewhere. Nothing is lost in the process. However, if the destination address is a Bitcoin address beginning with “3” or “p” in SegWit format, the money can be frozen - until the wallets are repaired in the course of 2019. More and more BTC wallets and exchanges are forming such SegWit -Addresses.

Network upgrades

date Block height Changes annotation
August 1, 2017 478,559
  • Spin-off from Bitcoin (without Segregated Witness)
  • Increase of the block size limit to 8 MB
  • Introduction of signatures as in BIP143
    • Replay Protection, so that Bitcoin Cash transactions cannot be carried out on the Bitcoin blockchain
    • Fixes quadratic hashing
  • Introduction of the Emergency Difficulty Adjustment Algorithm
  • Replace-by-fee removed from the client
November 13, 2017 -
  • Change of the Difficulty Adjustment algorithm
 The time of the hard fork was not specified by specifying a block height, but by specifying a time stamp
15th May 2018 530.350
  • Increase of the block size limit to 32 MB (130 transactions per second are possible)
  • The OP_RETURN limit has been increased from 80 bytes to 220 bytes (this makes it possible to write larger messages to the blockchain)
  • Reactivation of OP_CODEs, which were originally part of Bitcoin, but have been switched off. This includes:
    • OP_CAT
    • OP_SPLIT
    • OP_AND
    • OP_OR
    • OP_XOR
    • OP_DIV
    • OP_MOD
    • OP_NUM2BIN
    • OP_BIN2NUM

Spin-off of Bitcoin SV

For the Bitcoin Cash Hardfork on November 15, 2018, there were two competing protocol changes between the Bitcoin ABC and Bitcoin SV implementations: Bitcoin ABC was supposed to introduce the controversial "Canonical Transaction Ordering" (CTOR); As an alternative, Bitcoin SV should not activate CTOR, but instead increase the block size limit. Using the so-called hashwar, the protocol change should be detected with the most support from miners. Initially, Bitcoin SV had the upper hand with 72 to 75 percent of the hashrate, later Bitcoin ABC received more hashrate, which the miner Roger Ver formed from his customers' hashrate. On November 23, 2018, CoinGeek, the largest Bitcoin Cash miner and supporter of Bitcoin SV, announced that it would withdraw from the Hashwar and continue Bitcoin SV as an independent cryptocurrency.

Mining

Bitcoin Cash initially received little support from miners . Usually, the difficulty of finding new blocks only adjusts every 2016 blocks, which corresponds to two weeks with a normal block time of ten minutes. In order to avoid that no Bitcoin Cash block is found for a long time due to insufficient hash power, Bitcoin Cash has introduced new rules for faster adjustment of the difficulty ("Emergency Difficulty Adjustment", EDA). While there were sometimes many hours between the first blocks, the system settled down to the regular ten-minute interval after a few days. The difficulty with Bitcoin Cash is currently around 3% of the difficulty with Bitcoin (as of July 2019).

However, the EDA did not succeed in stabilizing the block intervals to the 10 minutes previously common with Bitcoin. Instead, the EDA causes periods in which no block is found for hours to alternate with periods in which up to 90 blocks per hour are found. In addition to instability of the block intervals, this has the effect that the Bitcoin Cash blockchain grows significantly faster than the Bitcoin blockchain and thus has an increased inflation rate. On November 13, 2017, Bitcoin Cash implemented a new hard fork to replace the EDA's algorithm.

Surname

The name Bitcoin Cash was controversial in the early days. In the meantime, the name Bitcoin Cash is used in general (as in crypto exchanges e.g. GDAX and other services). However, some Bitcoin supporters still reject this name and refer to the currency as "Bcash". You justify it with the need to differentiate it from Bitcoin because of the risk of confusion. In contrast, supporters of Bitcoin Cash like Gavin Andresen consider the currency to be the "real Bitcoin". There are now several spin-offs that bear the name Bitcoin (such as Bitcoin Gold ).

Clients

The first published implementation of Bitcoin Cash is Bitcoin ABC , which was split off from Bitcoin Core . Other implementations are Bitcoin XT , Bitcoin Unlimited , Bitcoin Classic and bcash.

As a light client (without a complete blockchain) there is Electron Cash, which was split off from Electrum.

An extensive list of clients can be found on the official Bitcoin Cash website.

Nodes

The Bitcoin Cash network consists of approx. 1440 nodes (of which approx. 780 Bitcoin ABC nodes). For comparison: The Bitcoin network has around 9,440 nodes (of which around 9,130 Bitcoin core nodes) (as of July 2019).

Exchange exchanges

Kraken, Bitfinex, Bitcoin.de, Poloniex, Bitstamp and Coinbase and many other exchange exchanges enable trading with Bitcoin Cash.

Dealer acceptance

The acceptance of Bitcoin Cash by merchants is increasing continuously and especially after the payment service provider BitPay has accepted BCH. There are now 900 websites that accept Bitcoin Cash (as of December 23, 2018).

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bitcoin Cash - Frequently Asked Questions. Retrieved February 26, 2019 .
  2. ↑ https://bitinfocharts.com/bitcoin%20cash/
  3. ↑ Bitfinex says miners to create chain called Bitcoin Cash. In: alarabiya.net. July 28, 2017, accessed August 7, 2017 .
  4. ↑ a b Some Bitcoin Backers Are Defecting to Create a Rival Currency. The New York Times , July 25, 2017, accessed August 10, 2017 .
  5. ^ A b Joon Ian Wong: "Bitcoin cash" is a new twist in the hard fork debate — and a way to bet on the outcome of the cryptocurrency's civil war. Quartz, July 25, 2017, accessed August 10, 2017 .
  6. ↑ Top 100 Cryptocurrencies by Market Capitalization. Retrieved September 9, 2019 .
  7. ↑ a b The little 1 × 1 about the Bitcoin Cash Fork: Everything you need to know. In: BitcoinBlog.de. August 8, 2017. Retrieved August 10, 2017 .
  8. ↑ Commit July 15, 2010 In: github.com.
  9. ^ Message from Satoshi Nakamoto dated October 4, 2010
  10. ↑ Average block size - Blockchain.info
  11. ↑ Bitcoin mempool size. In: Blockchain.info.
  12. ↑ bitcointalk.org thread from November 1, 2013
  13. ↑ Twitter post by Jihan Wu on April 4, 2017
  14. ↑ GDP 91
  15. ↑ When Will Bitcoin Fork, and What's It Mean for Crypto's Future? Inverse, July 26, 2017, accessed August 10, 2017 .
  16. ^ Aaron van Werdenum: BIP 91 Has Activated. Here's What That Means (and What It Does Not). Retrieved August 8, 2017 .
  17. ↑ BIP 91 Locks In: What This Means for Bitcoin and Why It's Not Scaled Yet. CoinDesk, July 21, 2017, accessed August 10, 2017 .
  18. ↑ Why We Must Increase the Block Size and Why I Support Bitcoin Unlimited hrsg = ViaBTC. October 12, 2016, accessed August 10, 2017 .
  19. ↑ Why we don't support SegWit. ViaBTC, April 13, 2017, accessed August 10, 2017 .
  20. ↑ Core's 1MB limit holds bitcoin community hostage, says cryptanalyst. In: CalvinAyre.com. May 3, 2017. Retrieved August 10, 2017 .
  21. ↑ Publication of the UAHF specification
  22. ↑ Bitcoin ABC on GitHub
  23. ↑ The little 1 × 1 about the Bitcoin Cash Fork: Everything you need to know . In: BitcoinBlog.de - the blog for Bitcoin and other virtual currencies . August 8, 2017 ( bitcoinblog.de [accessed October 30, 2017]).
  24. ↑ Bug in Bitcoin Cash (BCH): Beware of SegWit addresses . In: BitcoinBlog.de - the blog for Bitcoin and other virtual currencies . January 8, 2019 ( bitcoinblog.de [accessed January 8, 2019]).
  25. ↑ Christoph Bergmann: Bitcoin Cash Fork: May the blockchain burn in the hash war. In: BitcoinBlog.de - the blog for Bitcoin and other virtual currencies. November 12, 2018, accessed on February 24, 2020 (German).
  26. ↑ Christoph Bergmann: The last information before the Hashwar ... In: BitcoinBlog.de - the blog for Bitcoin and other virtual currencies. November 15, 2018, accessed on February 24, 2020 (German).
  27. ↑ Christoph Bergmann: Hashwar, Day 1: The first shots are fired, ABC is the winner. In: BitcoinBlog.de - the blog for Bitcoin and other virtual currencies. November 16, 2018, accessed on February 24, 2020 (German).
  28. ↑ Original Bitcoin wants live on as Bitcoin SV (BSV). November 23, 2018, Retrieved February 24, 2020 (American English).
  29. ↑ Jimmy Song: Bitcoin Cash Difficulty Adjustments. August 2, 2017. Retrieved August 10, 2017 .
  30. ↑ https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/blocks
  31. ↑ https://blockchair.com/bitcoin-cash/blocks
  32. ↑ Bitcoin Cash: Hard fork on new difficulty algorithm succeeds . In: BitcoinBlog.de - the blog for Bitcoin and other virtual currencies . November 14, 2017 ( bitcoinblog.de [accessed November 16, 2017]).
  33. ↑ Global Digital Asset Exchange - GDAX. Accessed January 30, 2018 .
  34. ↑ Cryptocurrency Market Capitalizations | CoinMarketCap. Retrieved January 30, 2018 .
  35. ↑ Aaron van Werdenum: Bitcoin Cash or Bcash: What's in a Name? Retrieved November 16, 2017 .
  36. ^ Gavin Andresen Breaks Relative Silence, Dubs BCH the Real Bitcoin . In: Bitsonline . November 11, 2017 ( bitsonline.com [accessed November 16, 2017]).
  37. ↑ Purse.io Adds Native BCH Support and Launches 'Bcash' - Bitcoin News . In: Bitcoin News . May 19, 2018 ( bitcoin.com [accessed July 8, 2018]).
  38. ^ Electron Cash
  39. ↑ Number of Bitcoin nodes on Coin Dance
  40. ↑ Bitcoin Cash (BCH) | CoinMarketCap
  41. ↑ BitPay accepts Bitcoin Cash in all bills . In: BitcoinBlog.de - the blog for Bitcoin and other virtual currencies . March 12, 2018 ( bitcoinblog.de [accessed July 28, 2018]).
  42. ↑ Tha Accept Bitcoin Cash Initiative: Home. Retrieved July 28, 2018 (American English).
  43. ↑ GreenPages: A community-maintained Bitcoin Cash merchant directory. Retrieved December 23, 2018 .