Mar 13, 2020
What is Bitcoin Cash and How to Buy It?
By SwapSpace on The Capital
Bitcoin Cash is an alternative to the traditional base cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, and has emerged as a result of several conflicts in the cryptocurrency world in August 2017. During this time, the community developers were not able to come to an agreement on the most appropriate update of the Bitcoin protocol. As a result, a new separate group of developers was formed, with Roger Ver as its leader. The event also gave rise to a whole wave of mostly unsuccessful hardforks — changes in the program code of Bitcoin that lead to a drastic change in its block structure, with Bitcoin Cash as its final successful result, bringing instant profit to its users. Bitcoin Cash as a virtual currency shares the block history of the base cryptocurrency, but, like any hardfork, it uses a different blockchain. Beyond the fundamental differences, their operation at the investment level is similar. What changes, as we explain below, is its potential as the cryptocurrency of the future.
Why Bitcoin Cash is better than the original Bitcoin
In the markets, you can see Bitcoin abbreviated as BTC and Bitcoin Cash as BCH. Was a new Bitcoin needed? The key to this question is the limitations of the original Bitcoin and the differences that Bitcoin Cash brings.
The biggest problem with Bitcoin is that it is a slow technology. Since Bitcoin transactions take an average of 10 minutes to process and, as the number of users grows, the time needed increases exponentially. In addition, more machines are needed to maintain high speed. Over time, the block size in Bitcoin was proven to be insufficient, it was slower and less scalable for use in everyday operations.
The Bitcoin Cash developers were able to maximize the original block size and make it eight times bigger — the first alternative used an 8 MB one, and the size is being increased ever since. This allows to speed up the blockchain verification process and optimizes the speed of transactions, regardless of the number of miners who support it. This is the big advantage of Bitcoin Cash over the prime currency. On the contrary, one disadvantage of Bitcoin Cash is that, due to using larger blocks, its security is theoretically less.
How buying Bitcoin Cash works
The operation of Bitcoin Cash is similar to the Bitcoin. Bitcoin Cash uses wallets that store the cryptocurrencies you have purchased, either by mining or buying them on platforms such as Bitfinex, Kraken, Bittrex, OKCoin, HitBTC, Bithumb, Livecoin or Allcoin, in other words, the main exchange houses. There you can buy Bitcoin Cash just like you would buy any virtual currency, Bitcoin included. You just have to say how much you want to invest.
Right now buying Bitcoin Cash is very similar to betting on Bitcoin in its beginnings, only with a little more certainty about the overall future of cryptocurrencies. It is an alternative within the market that solves one of the problems of Bitcoin, but no one can assure that it will prevail. Moreover, two alternatives have already emerged, such as Bitcoin Gold and Segwit2x. The first maintains the Bitcoin block size but makes changes to the mining algorithm, while the second is proposed as a completely different alternative.
The Bitcoin Cash quote can be tracked through exchange houses, the ones collecting the movements of virtual currencies. Keep in mind that if Bitcoin is volatile, Bitcoin Cash is even more so. This means that the price of Bitcoin Cash can rise and fall sharply in a short time.
Mining Bitcoin Cash
Bitcoin Cash mining process is quite similar to that of Bitcoin. Two things that have changed are the speed and profitability of mining bitcoin cash. At first, the difficulty to mine both kinds of coins was the same, that is, it took as much time to get a block of Bitcoin as one of Bitcoin Cash. Given the huge price differences, the former remains more attractive. To compensate, Bitcoin Cash has adjusted the difficulty downwards. This reduces the difficulty by 20% when less than six blocks are found in 12 hours. The result is that it will take less time and energy and will increase the profitability of mining bitcoin cash.
How to store Bitcoin Cash
The first step is visiting bitcoincash.org to get familiar with the idea of this cryptocurrency. Then you can proceed to download a wallet so you can start participating in the Bitcoin Cash economy. Most wallets are free to download and are easy to use for having a few key features like send, receive, save funds securely, browse transactions and more. It makes sense to pay respect to the “parent” and use the bitcoin.com wallet. It allows the users to change between both currencies without greater efforts. Another option includes Yenom, a Bitcoin Cash wallet which is simple and user-friendly for beginners. Coinomi is currently the leader among mobile wallets since it accepts the most cryptocurrencies in the world. Another wallet, Electron Cash, is a fast option since it uses servers that index the Blockchain Bitcoin Cash. You may also consider buying hardware wallets to store your crypto offline.
Right now mining or buying bitcoins is still as profitable as ever, but with a long-term view, a miner who really believes that Bitcoin Cash can outperform Bitcoin, can migrate their equipment to position around that currency. In any case, right now, the cryptocurrency sector is experiencing convulsive moments. Blockchain technology is on everyone’s lips, but with Bitcoin Cash new paths are opened that are really alternatives to traditional Bitcoin, and you will have to see how it affects the whole industry.
