Bitcoin Plummets as Bitcoin Cash Hard Forks

Bitcoin saw a fierce drop in value from ~$6,387 USD to ~$5,358 USD at its lowest point over the last week. This drop in value followed a period of stability that stretches back all the way to early September. While significant drops in price aren’t anything new for Bitcoin, they still seem to happen at an interesting moment in time.

A hard fork of the Bitcoin Cash blockchain was just recently implemented as two clashing protocols couldn’t seem to agree on the best way forward.

The first, new code that would help numerous cryptocurrencies communicate more effectively with one another as well as improvements that reorder transactions which in turn increase overall block capacity.

The competing protocol is actually old code which is harvested from the original Bitcoin protocol, which quadruples block capacity from 32MB to 128MB.

Although there are two separate chains existing at the moment for bitcoin cash, that may not always be the case. Advocates for either side of this protocol battle warn of possible damage to networks that could fatally impact things going forward for Bitcoin Cash.

While it is clear that there is still a need for a conclusive outcome, two separate chains will continue to exist until such a time.