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Everything You Need to Know about The Next Bitcoin Cash Fork
There’s a new upgrade coming to Bitcoin cash, and it’s set to be highly ambitious. In fact, some experts suggest that the change will be even more significant than the coin’s first upgrade, which is significant, considering the last fork involved the currency breaking away from Bitcoin entirely.
The upcoming update, set to take place on May 15th, brings together a range of features that are intended to help the network process as many transactions as possible – more than the original bitcoin in fact. Notably, the change will increase the bitcoin cash block size by four times (from 8MB to 32MB), allowing a larger number of transactions per block.
Bitcoins far more limited approach to trading may leave investors feeling nervous about the bold nature of Bitcoin cash. However, this currency has proven itself to be quite the competitor in recent months. In last fall, the developers behind Bitcoin cash chose to ignore the protests issued by some of the more seasoned developers of Bitcoin, who believed that increasing the size of the block and moving the currency forward too quickly could jeopardize the network.
The somewhat courageous nature of Bitcoin cash has made it increasingly attractive to some, with the coins now selling at a value of just under $1,600 per coin. This means that the market cap for the coin is over $24 billion. Additionally, aside from increasing the size of the block, Bitcoin cash will also be looking for alternative ways to scale. A solution recently suggested includes the increase of a field called OP-RETURN – where users can store information on the blockchain up to 220 bytes in size. This change would be a simple enough concept to implement, but it could have incredibly positive consequences for Bitcoin cash. In the past, the function has been used by services that require asset creation, time-stamping, and right management solutions.
Bitcoin Cash and the Smart Contract
The recent update to Bitcoin cash has seen developers packing a range of new features into the mix. What’s more, the company has also added some of the older capabilities offered by Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto back into the service after they were stripped from Bitcoin’s protocol in initial upgrades.
One of the most significant additions that Bitcoin cash has made comes with the delivery of two brand-new smart contracts or “if-then” programming statements. These statements provide additional functionality to the bitcoin experience, transforming the way cash tokens move between users. The smart contracts launched by Bitcoin cash were originally deactivated when the creator of Bitcoin learned that they could be enough to provide access to attacking parties. However, Bitcoin cash developers believe they’ve sealed the holes in the protocols.
The smart contracts were removed from the system only because they made the Bitcoin experience less secure. If it’s true that Bitcoin cash has been able to address these security concerns while maintaining the functionality of the contracts, then this could mean that Bitcoin cash has a new range of solutions to offer in the Bitcoin hard fork.
In February, it was suggested that the same smart contracts should be re-added back into Bitcoin, which would bring a touch of competition back into the mix for people interested in the Bitcoin cash environment. After all, it’s worth noting that it’s been seven years since the cases that suggested the dangers around the smart contracts originally emerged. Since then, developers have had plenty of time to shake out all the bugs in the system.
Of course, that’s not to say that vulnerabilities couldn’t still exist in the Bitcoin cash network. Though it’s fair to say that some investors will be wary of the smart contract integration, the man behind the main software implementation of Bitcoin Cash, BitcoinABC, Joshua Yabut feels that this is the right move for the organization. He feels that he smart contracts will be a good first step to helping Bitcoin cash compete with major players like Ethereum at a later stage.
Where is Bitcoin Cash Headed?
The Bitcoin cash upgrades have led to a great deal of excitement in the cryptocurrency community, with investors exploring the potential of the latest changes. Of course, while many people are excited about the upgrades, there has been a little skepticism from some of the community too. People are concerned that the sweeping changes being implemented to Bitcoin cash weren’t put to a community vote before they were coded into the network.
The lack of support for a community-focused model has left some investors feeling concerned about the governance of Bitcoin cash, and the way that the coin will continue to grow. Some users believe that investors don’t have enough of a chance to debate on the pros and cons of upcoming changes.
However, while it’s safe to say that some users are nervous, the changes haven’t been so controversial that they’ve caused a major dip in Bitcoin cash value. All of the latest implementations in the Bitcoin cash software have agreed to upgrade, and there hasn’t been a significant uproar from any wallets, exchanges, nodes, or miners that would stop the network from implementing the changes.
For many, the benefits of the Bitcoin cash upgrade don’t just come in the features that were added to the cryptocurrency, but in the things that were taken away too. For example, a change that considered launching new features for asset creation in Bitcoin cash, “OP_GROUP” was thrown out of the concept when the developers discovered that competing proposals for similar features may be on the horizon. Of course, if those proposals don’t make it to the protocol level fast, Bitcoin cash developers aren’t planning on waiting, as they’ll be putting the code up for consideration in October.
With a bold approach to the cryptocurrency market, it will be exciting to see which direction Bitcoin cash goes in next.
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