Bitcoin Cash

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is a cryptocurrency that resulted from a fork within the bitcoin community. It does not hold the same value as bitcoin. Some consider it a form of altcoin, while others believe it should be considered an extension of bitcoin.
== Background ==
Bitcoin Cash was created using the same blockchain as bitcoin, beginning on block 478558. It was created to help address a longtime issue of scaling bitcoin's blockchain to increasing demand.
In an effort to curb widespread spam attacks in which hackers flooded the blockchain with scores of small transactions, the bitcoin blockchain's developers imposed a hard limit of 1 megabyte per 10 minutes to the blockchain's programming in 2010. This translated to the blockchain being able to process roughly 5 transactions per second, hamstringing the effectiveness of spam attacks. Although this change was successfully implemented, the problem of "scaling," or adapting the blockchain to growing demand, caused fierce debate within the bitcoin community that never quite abated.
The 1-megabyte limit was effective in combating spam attacks, but as bitcoin grew in value, it caused an increase in the average time needed for transactions to be completed, while increasing the fees needed to carry out transactions in a reasonable amount of time. Although the number of miners also increased, which improved the computing power of the blockchain network, this issue continued to worsen. The bitcoin community became split on how to fix this issue, with some insisting that the limit be raised to 2 megabytes per 10 minutes, and others insisting that this would cause bitcoin to grow too quickly, which would inevitably lead to centralization, which violated the tenets of freedom and decentralization upon which bitcoin was created. Through the implementation of Segregated Witness (SegWit) - a software program that rearranges how data is stored in bitcoin blocks, which boosts capacity while remaining compatible with past versions of the software - members of the bitcoin community removed transaction malleability, a bug that had been hindering the development of bitcoin projects.
As a result of this division in the bitcoin community, Bitcoin Cash, a new cryptocurrency, was created.
In May 2019, a planned hard fork of the Bitcoin Cash protocol was delayed due to a software bug. Although a fix was issued by Bitcoin Cash's core developers, it was not clear how many nodes in the BCH network were still running the old, flawed software. In response to this, cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex disabled withdrawals and deposits for BCH, and published a statement about it on Twitter.
== History ==
=== Bitcoin Cash and Coinbase ===
In December 2017, Coinbase announced that it would begin allowing users to trade BCH. It also added BCH to the accounts of users who had bitcoin in their Coinbase wallets before August 1, 2017. This caused the price of BCH to spike, going from $2,100 to $3,600 in less than 24 hours.
The price increase resulted in Coinbase customers filing a class action lawsuit against Coinbase, accusing the exchange of facilitating insider trading. In July 2018, after a 6-month internal investigation, Coinbase concluded that there was no evidence that its staff had participated in insider trading.
=== ABC Bitcoin vs. nChain ===
In 2018, a developer called ABC Bitcoin proposed an upgrade to the existing Bitcoin Cash protocol. The proposed upgrade offered new scaling solutions and even the potential for developers to design smart contracts on the BCH blockchain, similar to Ethereum. Many strongly rejected the proposal, including nChain, which proposed its own alternative upgrade called "Bitcoin SV," the SV being an abbreviation for "Satoshi's Vision." Proponents of the "SV" upgrade argued that it was closer to the original vision of Satoshi Nakamoto. The proposed SV upgrade would increase the size of blocks on the blockchain to 128 megabytes. Bitcoin Cash community members raised concerns that this clash could lead to the community splitting following a hard fork of Bitcoin Cash, similar to the fork that created BCH in the first place. By November 15, 2018 - the agreed date for the network upgrade - the public dispute between the two sides had become bitter and devolved into personal accusations between the unofficial leaders of the two factions, with Bitcoin.com's Roger Ver advocating for ABC Bitcoin and nChain's Craig Wright for Bitcoin SV.
On November 15th, both software updates to Bitcoin Cash's blockchain went live, causing a hard fork. The final block mined before the fork was block number 556,766. This officially created Bitcoin Cash ABC and Bitcoin Cash SV, which initiated an intense conflict between miners in the formerly whole BCH community. Miners supporting one side or the other pooled their hash power in an effort to overwhelm the opposing side. Before the conflict began, Wright made public threats that programmers supporting Bitcoin Cash SV would perform hacking attacks that would destroy the ABC blockchain. Before the conflict began, SV consolidated enough hashing power to theoretically carry the attacks out. During the conflict, Wright began posting a series of combative tweets about Bitcoin Cash ABC, as well as posting an article on Medium.com entitled, "Present liability schemes and sanctions." He also allegedly sent an inflammatory email to Ver.
Shortly after the fork took place, several popular cryptocurrency exchanges, including Bitfinex, Binance, and Poloniex, announced they had begun accommodating both BCH ABC and BCH SV.
=== Cashscript ===
On May 27, 2019, analytics and data web portal Coin Dance announced that the company was working on a project called Cashscript, a programming language that could enable BCH developers to design smart contracts for the BCH protocol. The other goal of this project is to encourage members of the bitcoin and Ethereum communities to engage in projects with each other's protocols - Cashscript is being designed to be plugged into almost any web application.
=== BCH Development Fund ===
On May 30, 2019, the FVNI Development Society launched a new fundraiser to support developers maintaining the Bitcoin Cash network. The FVNI launch was carried out in collaboration with Bitcoin.com, Bitcoincash.org, Electron Cash, Bitcoincash.com, and several other organizations in China. The goal for "Phase One" of the campaign was to raise 800 BCH by August 1, 2019. 
Little information is available online regarding the FVNI Development Society. The organization's homepage does not publicly display a great deal of information, aside from its apparent mission statement - "Providing Support to Software Developers."
In January 2020, key Bitcoin Cash supporters proposed changing the Bitcoin Cash protocol to temporarily redirect 12.5 percent of newly-created BCH tokens to a development fund. The proposal caused such rancor in the BCH community that a significant number of miners threatened to withdraw their support from the system, a move that would have weakened the network’s computing power overall. Roger Ver announced via a blog post the following week that Bitcoin.com “will not go through with supporting any plan unless there is more agreement in the ecosystem.”
=== Halving ===
In April 2020, the Bitcoin Cash protocol underwent a halving, a process in which the protocol reduced its block by half. The reward went from 12.5 BCH per block mined to 6.25 BCH.
== Key People ==
*Roger Ver - proponent, notable developer 
*Craig Wright - proponent, notable developer
== References ==
Category: digital assets
Category: definitions
Category: cryptocurrency
Category: altcoins
Category: forks
Category: altcoins
Category: CryptoMarketsWiki