What Is Bitcoin Cash (BCH)?

What is Bitcoin Cash?

It probably sounds similar to Bitcoin, but you still don’t know exactly what it involves.

It’s high time you learn more about this revolutionary crypto and start using it for regular transactions.

In this guide, we provide you with the answers to 2 important questions:  What is BCH? and  Who created Bitcoin Cash? You can also expect our guide to reveal the following details:

• Bitcoin Cash history
• Benefits and Drawbacks of the coin
• BCH Price History
• Scopes of use

Take some time and read our reliable Bitcoin Cash review!

What Is Bitcoin Cash? A Quick Explanation

Learning about Bitcoin Cash for beginners is never easy.

You have to start from scratch and discover the essence of crypto, its features, pros and cons, and many other things.

That’s where we can help, by offering detailed explanations and guidelines.

Let’s start with the essentials. Firstly, Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is a cutting-edge cryptocurrency created to boost the level of decentralization.

It emerged shortly after Bitcoin’s hard fork in 2017 and still offers super innovative features for its users.

After the BTC’s blockchain split into two parts, Bitcoin Cash enabled much more transactions within a block than its predecessor, Bitcoin.

The idea for its creation was the reduction of fees and transfer times.

But what is Bitcoin hard fork, and how did it occur?

A hard fork is a situation when a blockchain divides, without any compatibility between forks.

This is a dramatic change to a protocol that turns invalid blocks or transactions into valid ones.

A hard fork also requires all nodes or customers to upgrade to the newest version of the protocol software.

Bitcoin Cash is meant to be a cheap and affordable payment solution, and the same idea was applied to BTC at the time of its creation.

Making transactions with BCH cost less than $.01, and transfer confirmation times take several seconds.

The next important question is: Who made Bitcoin Cash?

Bitcoin Cash was the idea of developers, and still enjoys enormous support from the same community.

They see Bitcoin Cash as the right alternative to Bitcoin because BTC is more about investment and less about payment.

Bitcoin Cash runs on Bitcoin Cash Node, a perfect environment that allows people to make transactions with the same-named coin.

In addition, Bitcoin Cash Node works like a blockchain for BCH.  We can consider it as a virtual machine that keeps the network stable and powers all transactions.

History of Bitcoin Cash

From a historical point of view, you will probably want to know: What is BCH cryptocurrency?

As I already mentioned in the introduction, Bitcoin suffered from different scalability issues, and still faces a lot of challenges in this regard.

This is the very reason why Bitcoin Cash came to its place. In other words, we now have Bitcoin Cash to improve the performance of the most popular crypto in the world.

Bitcoin’s hard fork in 2017 led to the creation of a new cryptocurrency that continued its separate story in the blockchain world.

The direction of the fork was in charge of miners and developers, who hoped to eliminate all the limitations of BTC.

Later on, Bitcoin Cash went through its forks, which resulted in the creation of Bitcoin Cash ABC (BCHA) and Bitcoin SV (BSV).

The first one has many similarities to authentic Bitcoin Cash.

However, there are still some differences. It reinvests 8% of each block reward into upgrading the network, working as compensation for developers.

On the other hand, we also have Bitcoin SV or Bitcoin Satoshi Vision. The  focus of this fork is to ensure greater stability by providing larger blocks than Bitcoin Cash, pushing the increase to 128 megabytes.

Despite many doubts and concerns, Bitcoin Cash has recorded different milestones.

For instance, it reached more than 9,000 transactions per second and 16.4 million transfers in one block in 2021 on the scaling testnet.

How Does Bitcoin Cash Work?

The question: What is BCH crypto? opens up the space for other important ones.

The first one is:  How does bitcoin cash work?

I have to tell you that Bitcoin Cash follows the same logic as Bitcoin. Both of them have a market cap of 21 million.

In addition, they also utilize nodes to confirm transactions and a PoW consensus. This means that miners authenticate transactions with computer power and get BCH for their work.

However, you should know that BCH works faster and with lower transaction fees than BTC. This is possible because of the larger block size. This crypto has been adapted for smaller transfers.

Bitcoin Cash is also compatible with smart contracts and the well-known apps CashShuffle and CashFusion.

CashShuffle is a protocol that shuffles BCH Cash to other holders before a transfer. It results in private transactions that are hardly traceable.

On the other hand, there is a CashFusion that puts your BCH in a large transfer with other users. Next, it returns BCH to your wallet.

However, is Bitcoin cash the same as Bitcoin?

No; they are different, despite some similarities.

Bitcoin Cash can tackle 25,000 transactions per block, while Bitcoin can support anything between 1,000 and  1,500.

BCH has already become one of the top 20 cryptos in the market, and has also expanded its block size to 32MB.

Still, many people are not familiar enough with BCH, so they may be confused.

Indeed, Bitcoin Cash is a cheaper option than BTC, but it lacks market presence.

While you can find BTC on many exchanges alongside plenty of trading pairs, the same does not apply to BCH.

Bitcoin Cash is here to replace cash, so its use is completely different.

Real Benefits of Bitcoin Cash

Bitcoin Cash has multiple benefits, so you might want to consider them before buying it.

What are the key pros of BCH? Let’s count these down.

Fast and Cheap Transactions

Bitcoin Cash is one of the most efficient payment methods in the industry.

It has the potential to tackle over 100 transactions within a second.  Additionally, a transaction fee is lower than $1.

This makes BCH more affordable than Bitcoin, where costs are relatively higher.

However, BCH is still far away from widely established methods such as Visa, that can handle significantly more transactions.

High Scalability

Bitcoin Cash comes with a larger block size than Bitcoin.

This makes it more scalable and lowers the total costs.

At the same time, it makes BCH more transactable than other cryptos.

The team behind BCH is working hard to implement all changes while making the crypto more flexible.

The crypto has significantly increased its block size to reach 32 MB as of November 2020.

Decentralized Option

Bitcoin Cash is a decentralized cryptocurrency, free from the control of central banks and other entities.

This removes any possibility that the government and financial institutions freeze your money.

Its nodes are widespread, keeping it secure from any political attacks.

Wide Accessibility

Acquiring BCH is simple in today’s market.

You can buy it on the most popular crypto exchanges for a relatively cheap price.

Before completing the first transaction, you want to know the ratio of 1 Bitcoin Cash to USD.

At the time of writing this guide, one BCH is equivalent to $101.92.

Real Drawbacks of Bitcoin Cash

Despite having a myriad of benefits, Bitcoin Cash is far from perfect.

It has some drawbacks, and it’s better to be aware of these.

Low Adoption

Bitcoin Cash has a very low rate of adoption. This means that people don’t trust it for investment purposes.

Despite gaining massive support from some of the leading names such as Roger Ver, it lacks confidence. This is something that prevents its further growth.

With the further adoption of BCH, demand for the crypto will also increase, which will also result in higher prices.

Security Issues

Bitcoin Cash stands out because of its cheaper and faster transactions.

As a result, it requires less power to confirm new transactions.

This also means that the system is not as secure as the Bitcoin network.

Impact on Environment

Bitcoin Cash benefits from a proof of work mechanism, and miners have to run computers to solve complex equations.

This uses significant energy and results in higher environmental costs.

Bitcoin Cash Price History

Is bitcoin cash worth buying?

This depends on many factors, mainly its potential and reputation in the market.

You should also consider the Bitcoin Cash price history before making any relevant decisions.

BCH emerged in August 2017, when every Bitcoin holder received tokens at a ratio of 1:1.

This led to the fact that each BTC holder was able to get one BCH token for every Bitcoin they had.

BCH’s price hit an all-time high in December 2017, reaching a maximum of $4,355.62.

However, it did not remain on the same level, and soon dropped to 80% over the following six months.

BCH prices kept the same value (under $600) until January 2021. Its highest value was $1,636, recorded in May 2021.

However, its price fell by about 75% by the end of June 2021.

In a highly volatile market, how much is Bitcoin Cash worth?

Generally speaking, the BCH price depends on many factors.

Bitcoin Cash has a total supply of 21 million coins. Upon reaching the total amount, new BCH tokens won’t be mined.

This system is the invention of Satoshi Nakamoto, who came up with it to hinder inflation. This can result in increased demand and higher prices.

The price of BCH is also determined by other factors, including the overall situation of the cryptocurrency market and the value of other coins, specifically Bitcoin.

Since BTC accounts for almost 60% of the entire market value, Bitcoin Cash tends to follow the movements of Bitcoin to create the latest market prices.

In addition, sentiment analysis could affect the price of Bitcoin Cash. It shows how investors feel about cryptocurrency at a certain point.

How Many People Own Bitcoin Cash?

Bitcoin Cash is already a globally available option, so it would be interesting to know who owns the most coins.

According to the data from CoinCarp, there were about 17.12 million BCH holders on December 26, 2022.

The same source shows that the largest BCH wallet controls about 4,26% of the total supply.

This wallet also had about 893,949 tokens at the time of writing (December 26).

The second-biggest BCH wallet had 288,019 tokens, and 1.37% of the total supply.

One of the leading exchanges, Huobi Market, took the 25th place with 59,026 and 0,28% of the total supply.

When it comes to the exact holders of these tokens, we don’t know their names.

Some speculations say that Roger Ver, Calvin Ayre, and Jihan Wu could be the major holders, but there is no evidence for that.

What Is Bitcoin Cash Used For?

Bitcoin Cash has different scopes of applications.

Apart from peer-to-peer transactions between individuals, you can use it to pay merchants for any services and goods you buy in-store or online.

A coin is also a perfect option for making private payments via CashShuffle and CashFusion.

Below are the four main ways of spending your Bitcoin Cash:

• Spending BCH from your wallet
• Loading BCH on to your card
• Purchasing Gift Cards with BCH
• Making P2P transactions

As for the companies that accept Bitcoin Cash, the list includes some of the leading enterprises such as Twitch, Namecheap, SlingTV, airBaltic, APMEX, Jomashop, Newegg, and many more.

What Is the Future of Bitcoin Cash?

Bitcoin Cash has a very promising future ahead. The popular coin will find its place in the market and show its worth to potential investors.

However, BCH still faces harsh competition from other projects such as Litecoin, so it should continue working on improvements.

The final decision on which coin you should buy depends on personal preferences and public opinion.

The price of BCH will continue to fluctuate, and that’s the thing to be aware of before investing in it.

The general recommendation is to stay tuned with the latest market trends and do your research if you plan to acquire some BCH in the future.