Pros of Bitcoin Cash
- Offers faster transactions than Bitcoin
- Efficient and scalable cryptocurrency
- Low transaction costs
- Easy to buy and sell
Cons of Bitcoin Cash
- Subject to volatility
- Significantly lower adoption than Bitcoin
- Branding issues can arise from the name
History – The creation of Bitcoin Cash
Bitcoin had captured the imagination of millions of cryptocurrency enthusiasts by 2017, but there were significant structural problems. Some Bitcoin transactions took up to four days to complete. The only way to speed the process up was to pay a fee that worked out at around $28. It was therefore impractical to use Bitcoin for small transactions, so Bitcoin Cash was created in a bid to address scalability concerns.
The hard fork took place in May 2017, with Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) going their separate ways. It has been possible to buy Bitcoin Cash and take part in Bitcoin Cash trading ever since. Bitcoin Cash is designed to be faster and cheaper to use than Bitcoin.
The maximum block size is 8MB, compared to just 1MB in the previous Bitcoin blockchain. Bitcoin Cash also uses zero-conf, which allows for almost instantaneous transactions, which are almost always confirmed in the next block.
Bitcoin Cash trading began at around $270 on August 1, 2017, with
Bitcoin trading
at roughly $2,700 at the time. It reached an intraday high of $4,355.62 on December 20 that year, before falling 88% to $519.12 by August 23, 2018. By December 15, it had tumbled all the way to $76.86. Bitcoin Cash rallied to more than $475 by June 2019, and it has been prone to high levels of volatility ever since. Its value increased by more than 200% between December 2020 and January 2021, for instance, reaching its highest point since 2018.
Development – How Bitcoin Cash has developed since 2017
The Bitcoin community became pretty polarized after the hard fork of 2017, with one faction championing the large blocks of Bitcoin Cash and the other supporting the smaller blocks of Bitcoin. The faction that favors Bitcoin Cash views as a digital currency, whereas Bitcoin backers see it more as a store of value. For that reason, many refer to Bitcoin Cash as “the pure form of Bitcoin”.
On November 15, 2018, another hard fork chain split saw Bitcoin Cash go in one direction and a rival faction, Bitcoin SV, go its own way. Bitcoin SV is short for Satoshi’s Vision, named after Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto. In August 2018, Bitcoin Cash proposed an upgrade to the protocol, including Canonical Transaction Ordering, which would require transactions in each block to be included in a specific order, and the addition of an opcode that would bring more flexibility to the BCH scripting language and allow non-cash transactions.
A faction within the BCH community, led by Craig Wright and gambling industry heavyweight Calvin Ayre, railed against these changes. Wright and Ayre felt the upgrades were insecure and that the proposal to allow non-cash transactions would corrupt the vision of Bitcoin Cash. That led to the hard split on November 18, 2018.
Statistics – All the most important facts about Bitcoin Cash
The supply of Bitcoin Cash is capped at 21 million, the same figure as Bitcoin. Issuance will permanently halt around the year 2140 at 20,999,999.9769 BCH. Bitcoin Cash was designed to support more than 100 transactions per second. Bitcoin maxes out at seven per second, making Bitcoin Cash a lot faster.
Of the major coins that you can buy at cryptocurrency exchanges, it has the second fastest transactions times, behind only XRP, and ahead of Litecoin. Anyone interested in Bitcoin Cash trading reviews is often keen on
XRP trading
and
Litecoin trading
too, while smaller coins like EOS and Stellar Lumens are also very rapid.
The number of transactions on Bitcoin Cash’s blockchain during a stress test in Sep. 2018 shot up to 25,000 per block. There is an Emergency Difficulty Adjustment algorithm for mining, which adjusts every 2,016 blocks. Bitcoin Cash uses a proof-of-work algorithm to timestamp every new block, with a partial hash inversion timestamping scheme (hash function: SHA-256). The block reward is 6.25 BCH, which will be halved every four years from 2024.
Security, Features and Uses – How safe is it to buy Bitcoin Cash?
Bitcoin Cash is a decentralized cryptocurrency that was designed to fuel cheap and rapid online peer-to-peer transactions. You can use it to shop online at some of your favorite ecommerce retailers. More than 5,000 physical stores now accept BCH, providing another compelling reason to buy Bitcoin Cash. You can also use it to buy food and beverages at a growing range of restaurants and cafes.
Clothing, accessories, games, entertainment, gift cards and all sorts of merchandise can be bought with Bitcoin Cash. There are a number of BCH merchants in the United States, and many more in South America, Europe, Asia and Australia. It is even possible to pay for accommodation, precious metals, utilities, legal fees, web domain cloud computing and online gambling via BCH.
Bitcoin Cash was designed as more of a practical digital currency than Bitcoin, but many people still conduct Bitcoin Cash trading in a bid to make a profit. It has been subject to wild price swings over the years, but many people that
buy crypto currency online
believe it has a strong upside and see it as an excellent investment and a hedge against inflation.
The larger block size associated with Bitcoin Cash does lead to possible security concerns, and that has deterred some people from Bitcoin Cash trading. The lower hash rate makes it more vulnerable to attacks, but Bitcoin Cash holders have not suffered any notable hacks thus far. You should always remain on alert for Bitcoin Cash trading scams, but that is true of any cryptocurrency, whether you
buy Binance Coin,
buy Ethereum
or buy dozens of altcoins.
How to Trade – Where can you buy Bitcoin Cash?
You need to start by identifying the best Bitcoin Cash trading sites available. Binance, Coinbase, Kraken and CEX.IO are among the leading crypto exchanges that allow you to buy Bitcoin Cash and sell BCH. Coinbase only allows you to trade a handful of cryptocurrencies – Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash and a few others – so it is encouraging to see Bitcoin Cash on that small list.
If you are only interested in trading Bitcoin Cash and a few other popular coins, Coinbase is a great option. The user experience is very simple and effective, withdrawal fees are attractive and the liquidity is high. If you want to trade more coins, Binance might be a better choice, as it offers a large variety of cryptocurrencies. You can buy Bitcoin Cash alongside more than 100 other options, while it also charges low trading fees and provides advanced charting, but beware the high withdrawal fees.
Coinbase is the most widely known cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, and it is a great all-rounder for anyone interested in Bitcoin Cash trading, so we will use Coinbase for this explanation of how to trade. First you must set up an account. Click “Get Started” at the top right of the homepage, enter name and email address, choose a password, agree to the terms and click “Create Account”. You will need to verify your identity by uploading a scan of photo ID and proof of address, and it also requires you to undergo two-factor authentication when signing in.
Once you have an account, you can start your Bitcoin Cash trading journey. Click the blue “Buy / Sell” box at the top of the screen. It will automatically be set to “Buy”. It will also be automatically set to Bitcoin, so click on the arrow and change it to Bitcoin Cash, which is the second option. Enter the amount you wish to buy and choose your payment method. It will be set to “One time purchase”, but you can change it to daily, weekly or monthly if you are dollar cost averaging.
Click “Preview Buy” and it will inform you of the amount of BCH you stand to receive, along with the fee it charges. Click “Buy now” to confirm. The BCH should arrive instantly, and you can then transfer it to a BCH wallet of your choice if you are planning to hold it long-term. A hard, offline wallet made by Ledger or Trezor is generally the safest option.
You can also switch from “Buy” to “Sell” at the top of the transaction box. You will need BCH in your Coinbase account to be able to sell anything. Choose Bitcoin Cash in the “Sell” box, and choose your “Deposit to” method before clicking “Sell Bitcoin Cash”. You can convert Bitcoin Cash to other cryptocurrencies too. Some users buy Bitcoin Cash and then convert to a stablecoin like Tether during times of uncertainty.
Future Outlook – The future of Bitcoin Cash trading
Anyone that likes to buy Bitcoin Cash will be keen to discover more about its future prospects. It is highly likely that the number of retailers and service providers accepting BCH will continue to increase in the years ahead. It is quick and effective, and it cuts out the middleman, resulting in lower fees for the vendor and the consumer.
The main concern is whether the Bitcoin Cash price will increase or at least hold. Any Bitcoin Cash price prediction comes with the caveat that this is a very volatile asset, prone to wild fluctuations in a very short space of time. However, in 2021, BCH started to edge back towards levels that had not been seen since 2018, which is encouraging for anyone that likes to buy Bitcoin Cash.
There are further reasons for encouragement. Many Bitcoin investors were initially opposed to the creation of BCH, but it now has a strong and dedicated fan club. Several analysts believe it will embark on an upward trend over the next couple of years, albeit with reasonably regular periods of high volatility along the way. If you buy crypto online you will be keenly aware of the risks of volatility, but you would only crystallize losses by selling at the wrong time and the long-term outlook appears to be relatively promising.
Reputation and Customer Feedback – What’s the general consensus?
Bitcoin Cash is one of the most contentious cryptocurrencies in this space. It has polarized the community, with some falling into the camp of evangelists and others remaining bitterly opposed to it. Further conflict arose with the hard fork that created Bitcoin SV in 2018. The result is that Bitcoin Cash has a group of staunch, hardcore advocates, and a number of people that despise BCH or remain deeply skeptical about it.
The former faction believes it will overtake Bitcoin in the coming years, thanks to its improved functionality and scalability, while the second group thinks it will wither due to a lack of liquidity and interest, while some are put off by the Bitcoin SV debacle. Very few crypto investors are on the fence about BCH, so its reputation really depends upon which side you sit.
Conclusion – A popular choice among cryptocurrency investors
Bitcoin Cash is popular among many crypto investors due to the speed, ease of use and efficiency it offers. Many also view it as an attractive asset worth holding. You must stick to safe and reputable trading sites when buying Bitcoin Cash, as a number of devious operators will try to scam you in this largely unregulated space.
We recommend that you stick to large, popular crypto exchanges like Coinbase and Binance, while taking care to transfer your BCH to an offline wallet for safe storage. You should always conduct extensive research into the fees charged for Bitcoin Cash trading. Some trading sites are better for beginners, such as Coinbase and Cash App, whereas more advanced traders or those interested in high sums might prefer Binance or Kraken, and sites such as eToro are also worth considering.
