The best Bitcoin Cash trading sites allow Canadians to buy this popular altcoin in a safe and secure environment. Bitcoin Cash was created in 2017, and has been among the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap since.
It has enjoyed a blaze of publicity in recent times, as investors that missed out on the chance to buy Bitcoin when it was below $1,000 look for interesting alternatives. This Bitcoin Cash trading guide explores the ways in which Bitcoin Cash differs from Bitcoin, the challenges it faces and the best Bitcoin Cash trading platforms for Canadian investors.
Bitcoin Cash was created in a hard fork from Bitcoin in order to settle a long-running dispute among prominent members of the community. Many had grown frustrated with the slow transaction times and inefficiency when using Bitcoin as a means of payment. They wanted to address the scalability and efficiency concerns by significantly increasing the block size and introducing zero configuration networking, but many people opposed these plans and argued that Bitcoin should maintain most of its existing features, but adopt SegWit to upgrade the network.
They could not agree on a compromise, so the hard fork took place in May 2017, with Bitcoin going in one direction and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) going its own way. Canadians could first buy Bitcoin Cash on August 1, 2017, when Bitcoin Cash trading began at around US$270, which was a tenth the price of Bitcoin.
In the ensuing years, Bitcoin went to the moon, but Bitcoin Cash was unable to scale those heights. It enjoyed an all-time high when the intraday price hit US$4,355.62 on December 20, 2017, but within a year it had plunged below US$80. Bitcoin Cash made modest gains in the ensuing years, but bearish conditions and in-fighting among the community kept the price depressed. It finally started to break out once more towards the end of 2020, and in early 2021 it reached its highest valuation since 2018, with a market cap of around US$8 billion.
The group that opposed plans for using SegWit included developers, activists and entrepreneurs. They banded together to create a new cryptocurrency in a hard fork, and the ViaBTC mining pool came up with the name Bitcoin Cash.
That name reflects the notion that Bitcoin Cash should be used as a digital currency, whereas many consider Bitcoin to be more of an asset designed to hold value, akin to gold or silver. The leading developer behind the hard fork was Amaury Sechet.
In 2018, a group featuring Coingeek, nChain and Craig Wright sought to push Bitcoin Cash in a different direction, but faced resistance among the Bitcoin Cash community. Once again, a compromise could not be reached, and Wright and his followers were forced off the network in another hard fork, which created Bitcoin SV.
There was yet another hard fork in 2020, although this was smaller and far less disruptive. Sechet was behind the dispute, but he could not achieve community consensus, and he split onto a new chain called Bitcoin Cash ABC (BCHA).
These forks certainly damaged Bitcoin Cash’s reputation, and it made some people think twice about Bitcoin Cash trading, but it has strengthened the notion that no individual is in charge of Bitcoin Cash. It is a decentralized cryptocurrency with six independently functioning node teams maintaining the network in a distributed fashion.
Statistics – All you need to know before you buy Bitcoin Cash
As Bitcoin Cash is a fork from the original Bitcoin blockchain, it follows a very similar format. The total supply of coins is capped at 21 million, and they will stop being issued in 2140. The number of coins in circulation went past 18.5 million in 2021. You can buy Bitcoin Cash at almost every site that allows you to buy crypto currency online, but it relies on mining to validate transactions and maintain the network.
The hash function is SHA-256 and the mining reward is halved roughly every four years, It dropped to 6.25 BCH in 2020. Head over to any site on which you can buy crypto online and you will see the current stats on Bitcoin Cash’s price, including circulating supply, value, market cap, all-time high, rank, volatility and trading volume.
Bitcoin Cash has a far larger block size than Bitcoin. It was initially 8MB compared to Bitcoin’s 1MB after the hard fork, but it has continued to increase and it recently went up to 32MB in order to address new scalability concerns. The larger block size theoretically leads to far swiffer transactions, making Bitcoin Cash more suitable than Bitcoin for small digital transactions. It is also pretty cheap, so many people buy Bitcoin Cash and use it online to buy goods, pay for services and pay friends and family.
Bitcoin Cash is inextricably linked to Bitcoin due to its name and the shared history between the coins. However, they continue to drift further apart. Bitcoin is the world’s leading cryptocurrency by a considerable margin, and many institutional investors are buying it as an alternative to gold as they bid to diversify their portfolios during times of economic uncertainty. Bitcoin Cash has more of a cult following, but many feel it has vast potential, as it facilitates quick, cheap, secure transfers. Bitcoin Cash also has a finite supply, so it does have the potential to be seen as a store of value too if it manages to enjoy a further boost in demand.
Hundreds of retailers, businesses and service providers accept Bitcoin Cash as payment. It is not quite as broadly adopted as Bitcoin or Litecoin, but it is definitely one of the most prominent cryptocurrencies. You can buy clothing, food, drinks, vacations, precious metals, stocks, funds, utilities and much more using BCH, and the list of sites accepting it continues to grow with each passing year.
Bitcoin is a lot more popular than Bitcoin Cash, and many in the Bitcoin community like to throw shade on BCH following the hard fork. Some claim that the lower hash rate and larger block size makes it more vulnerable to attacks. Its dominance of the SHA-256 algorithm is just 2%, which also leaves it theoretically susceptible to attacks from rogue Bitcoin miners. However, people have been able to buy Bitcoin Cash for several years now, and it has not been subject to any major security issues just yet. Of course, you should always remain vigilant against the possibility of Bitcoin Cash trading scams. Read the Bitcoin Cash trading reviews and only buy crypto online at trustworthy sites with low slippage, high liquidity, a robust recent security record and a long history of guaranteeing secure, effective trades.
You need to figure out the best Bitcoin Cash trading site for the level of buying and selling you plan to conduct. If you are a newcomer to the world of crypto and you simply want to buy some Bitcoin Cash to hold and use for online transactions, you might like Coinbase. It is very user-friendly, and it makes the process of Bitcoin Cash trading very simple.
Slightly more advanced traders might prefer Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange. It is more advanced than Coinbase, with more detailed charting and lower trading costs, but some withdrawal fees can be onerous. It also has more altcoins to trade, so you can buy Binance Coin and buy Ethereum alongside hundreds of other cryptocurrencies, and easily take part in
Litecoin trading and XRP trading. They are two of the most popular exchanges among Canadians, but you can also check out Kraken, Gemini, eToro, Robinhood and some others.
When you have found your preferred Bitcoin Cash trading, you can click “Register” or “Get Started” at the top of the page. If you opt for Coinbase, you will have to enter your name and email address, and then upload photo ID and proof of address. Binance requires you to move a puzzle piece to the middle of the screen to prove you are not a robot. Once you have accepted the terms and conditions, verified your email address and registered, click on “Buy / Sell” or “Buy Now” at the top of the screen to bring up the simple trading box.
Change the currency to CAD and the crypto you want to purchase to BCH. Enter the amount you wish to spend in CAD and link up a payment method, such as Visa or Mastercard. Click “Buy BCH” or “Preview Buy” and a new box will tell you the amount of BCH you will receive and the exchange fee you will be charged.
When you buy Bitcoin Cash, it should arrive in your exchange wallet almost instantaneously. If you plan to trade it, you can leave it there, and then click to either sell or trade. You can swap Bitcoin Cash for various other cryptocurrencies, or sell it and send CAD to your exchange fiat wallet.
If you intend to buy Bitcoin Cash and hold it, or to use it for regular transactions, you should withdraw it to an external wallet. You can opt for a software wallet, hardware wallet, web-based wallet or paper wallet. A software wallet should be fine for small amounts, but a hardware wallet made by a firm like Ledger or Trezor is safer and more robust. It requires an initial investment, but it should keep your BCH safe, as it is offline.
Bitcoin Cash has one of the fastest transaction speeds of all the decentralized cryptocurrencies, so retail adoption continues to increase. It stands a good chance of growing more widespread in future thanks to its technical attributes. Bitcoin Cash essentially improves upon Bitcoin by speeding up transactions and scaling up the network to accommodate more users. Yet it also inherited the strengths of Bitcoin: a solid consensus mechanism, a finite supply, and proof-of-work distribution.
You would therefore expect a Bitcoin Cash price prediction to be bullish. However, the Bitcoin Cash price has been repressed by disputes among the community, various hard forks and criticism from diehard Bitcoin devotees. Bitcoin Cash trading is therefore nowhere near as popular as Bitcoin trading or Ethereum trading, but that could all change in future. If newcomers to the crypto space compare Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash against one another, they could conclude that Bitcoin Cash is technically superior and cheaper, without concerning themselves with its baggage. The Bitcoin Cash price has increased significantly of late, and it could spiral further now that leadership issues have largely been ironed out and its path looks clearer.
Opinion regarding Bitcoin Cash is extremely polarized. Some people fanatically buy Bitcoin Cash, hold it and praise it to the hilt. Others would never dream of buying it, they pour scorn on it, and they urge others not to buy Bitcoin Cash. You really have to make an objective judgement for yourself.
Those customers that do buy Bitcoin Cash are largely positive about its speed, security and efficiency. It is a highly effective decentralized cryptocurrency, and it does have the potential to increase in value going forwards. A Bitcoin Cash prediction is difficult, as it is a volatile asset, and new coins regularly aim to usurp it, but Bitcoin Cash is still going strong thanks to its loyal user base.
You should stick to the best Bitcoin Cash trading sites recommended on this page if you decide to buy Bitcoin Cash. Look for high liquidity, robust security, low slippage, strong analytical tools and reasonable fees. Avoid small, unknown sites that promise deals that look too good to be true, and do your research before you decide to buy Bitcoin Cash.
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