Bitcoin Cash is the fourth largest cryptocurrency in the world with market capitalization of more than $6 billion. The cryptocurrency was created in 2017 as a bitcoin’s hard fork, in order to increase blocksize of the protocol.
Bitcoin Cash was forked at block 478558, and for each BTC, an owner got one BCH. Although Bitcoin Cash made some changes to the code after forking from bitcoin, the original system of unstructured governance remained.
So, what exactly is a hard fork? I’m glad you asked.
A hard fork is a change in the network’s protocol that influences the validity of the rules. This means that previously invalid blocks and transactions became valid and vice versa.
Hard forks are usually conducted to add new features to a blockchain network, or to reverse hacking and code bugs.
These changes can be unintended, such as March 2013 Chain Fork, when migration from BerkeleyDB to Level DB caused a chain split. And they can be intended like Bitcoin Gold, Bitcoin SV, and Bitcoin Cash.
Speaking of Bitcoin Cash…
Bitcoin Cash hard forks. Again
According to BitMex Research’s Fork Monitor, the hard fork happened on Friday, at the block number 609,135.
It seems that after Bitcoin Cash underwent another hard fork, some of the miners have been mining on the wrong chain. In fact, they wasted money and resources on mining 14 blocks on the wrong chain.
The most of the network already declared these empty blocks as invalid. The cost for mining the incorrect chain could reach up to 25 BCH, or about $6,600, plus the electricity costs that go along with mining.
The hard fork hasn’t affected Bitcoin Cash’s poor price performance, which has fall around 3.2% since the hard fork.
This isn’t the first time that Bitcoin Cash is hard forked. For example, in 2018, the cryptocurrency hard forked to add new functionality to its protocol.
And, according to data from BitMEX Research’s Forkmonitor tool, in May 2019, Bitcoin Cash hard forked again after trying to upgrade to new software at block number 582,679.
Conclusion
Bitcoin Cash is probably the most famous hard fork of bitcoin. And although hard forking has its benefits, it can also have serious consequences for cryptocurrencies and communities.
Since its inception in 2017, Bitcoin Cash hard forked several times. And it seems that we can expect to see further forks down the line.
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