Hello readers,
Upon anyone’s arrival in this wild wild crypto world, the handful of crypto coins which the people generally get to know about first are Bitcoin and Bitcoin cash and probably you may have heard about Bitcoin on your first day in crypto realm, you must have learned about Bitcoin cash as well quickly after. The main idea behind the creation of bitcoin was to make such a currency which can revolutionise how we think about traditional money. And with Bitcoin (BTC) leading the way and setting a founding stone for this digital world from 2009 onwards, Bitcoin became the first digital currency to gain widespread recognition. However, as Bitcoin grew in popularity and more and more people started investing and holding their coins, it ran into some issues. They were mainly about how many transactions it could handle at a particular time Frame and what are leading to delays and high fees. In response to solve this problem, Bitcoin Cash (BCH) was created in 2017 to come out as a solution for these problems. But while both Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash share the same origin, they have taken totally different paths since then. So, let us take a dive and explore the key differences between them without any further ado!
Bitcoin Cash - The Creation
Bitcoin, designed by the mysterious creator Satoshi Nakamoto who’s real identity is a secret, was meant to be a digital alternative to the procedural monetary system containing only physical papers, as he wanted it to allow people to send and receive payments without needing banks. But as more people started using Bitcoin, its network got overloaded die to tremendous traffic. As usual, the transactions slowed down and fees went shot up to perform transactions. To solve this problem, some developers suggested making Bitcoin’s “block size” bigger in size, so that more transactions could fit into a single block.
But however, the Bitcoin community could not agree on this big change. As a result, a new cryptocurrency called Bitcoin Cash or BCH was created in August 2017, with the same basic mechanism but with larger block sizes that could process more transactions at a time. So, while Bitcoin Cash was born out of Bitcoin, the two have taken different routes since their birth.
Block Size and Scalability
One of the main technical differences between Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash is their block size
Bitcoin (BTC)
Bitcoin's block size is comparatively low - 1 megabyte and this was done to help keep the network decentralized. But laster it got realised that it also limits how many transactions can be processed at once. As Bitcoin became more popular, this small block size led to slower transactions and higher fees, especially when lots of people were trying to use it at the same time.
Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
On the other side, the Bitcoin Cash started with a much bigger block size of 8 MB, and later increased it to 32 MB. This allows BCH to process more transactions per block, making it both faster and cheaper to use. Bitcoin Cash was designed to be more practical for everyday use - like buying coffee or shopping online and paying with crypto, without having to pay high fees or wait too long for performing transactions.
Store of Value vs. Digital Cash
Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash also have different philosophies as..
Bitcoin (BTC)
Many Bitcoin supporters believe that Bitcoin’s limited supply with a limited print count of only 21 million, only which will ever exist snd this scaricty makes it a great store of value. They see it as a good investment, much like gold, and think its price will continue to rise over time because of its low supply. Bitcoin has become popular with investors looking for a way to protect their money from inflation.
Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
On the other hand, Bitcoin Cash aims to be a simple, fast and affordable payment system that favour all kind of people to get their hands upon this technology. Its supporters want BCH to be used like regular money for everyday purchases just like what we do with liquid cash of fiat money. They believe that its larger block size gives us a freedom to better fulfil Satoshi Nakamoto’s original vision of creating a successful “electronic cash”.
Solutions to Scalability
Another big difference between Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash on how they handle scalability.
Bitcoin (BTC)
To deal with its slower transaction speeds, Bitcoin developers introduced a groundbreaking technology called Segregated Witness or SegWit in short, which helps fit more transactions into each block without increasing the block size. They also developed the Lightning Network in a alter stage, which is a second-layer solution that allows transactions to happen off the main blockchain, speeding things up and reducing fees.
Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
Bitcoin Cash, however, has not adopted either the SegWit technology or the Lightning Network blockchain approach. Its supporters believe that simply increasing the block size is a more straightforward and efficient way to improve scalability, without needing extra layers like Lightning.
Resources
I hope You liked reading my post about Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash. Let me know if you hold any of them and why in the comments below and I will be seeing you all in my next post.
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