Bitcoin is the leading cryptocurrency, probably because it was the first ever. It has many amazing things about it, top among which is its security. Bitcoin is the cryptocurrency with the most secure network, and the developers claim it cannot be compromised.
Bitcoin has also seen a lot of acceptance. It is accepted worldwide as a means of payment, even though some people are skeptical about it. Bitcoin uses a Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism which critics claim is energy-consuming. While this is true to some extent, it is also the secret behind Bitcoin’s unmatched security.
Bitcoin has no CEO, but its creator is known by the name Satoshi Nakamoto. It is therefore not subject to the control of any individual, making it a truly decentralized cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin Cash on the other hand is a fork of Bitcoin, that means it broke out from Bitcoin as it were. While Bitcoin first launched in 2009, Bitcoin Cash was created in 2017, eight years after Bitcoin. Since then, the two have existed together and are often mistaken for each other.
However, there are major differences between the two cryptocurrencies as we’ll see shortly in this guide. Bitcoin Cash also uses the PoW concept of Bitcoin, but made changes to some of metrics, making it distinct from the number one cryptocurrency.
How Bitcoin Cash Came About
Bitcoin was created as “A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash” according to the Bitcoin whitepaper. Put another way, Bitcoin was meant to be used as cash that you spend everyday. However, something happened that made Bitcoin not to exactly fit the definition of cash.
The network is slow, even though it wasn’t so from the beginning. Things only got bad when more transactions were added to the blockchain, reducing the speed of the network. While developers say that this slow transaction is a feature of Bitcoin and not a bug, this made Bitcoin difficult to use as cash for instant transactions.
It is on record that a single Bitcoin transaction took over six hours to complete. How do you use that to buy anything? So a section of Bitcoin developers decided that Bitcoin had fallen short of its primary purpose – to serve as electronic digital cash – and it was time to look for an alternative.
They then created another blockchain out of Bitcoin and called it Bitcoin Cash, the name implying that this was cash indeed. Till date though, those who stuck with Bitcoin believe there’s no way Bitcoin Cash can ever match up to Bitcoin in any way.
Differences between Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash
So Bitcoin Cash was forked from Bitcoin, so what is the difference between the two? Well, there are many differences.
First, Bitcoin has a block time – the time it takes to mine one block – of ten minutes. This means you’ll need roughly ten minutes for a Bitcoin transaction to complete. It can take much longer of course, depending on factors such as how busy the network is when you sent the transaction.
For Bicroin cash, the block time is 2.5 minutes, making it four times faster than Bitcoin. Bitcoin Cash proponents argue that this is the key feature that makes BCH real electronic cash and not Bitcoin.
Bitcoin Cash also has a bigger block size of 32 mb, compared to Bitcoin’s 10 mb. This makes Bitcoin Cash able to process 100 transactions per second, against Bitcoin’s seven transactions per second.
Bitcoin Cash also went through another hard fork in 2018, leading to the creation of Bitcoin Satoshi Version by Craig Wright, an Australian programmer who claims he is Satoshi that created Bitcoin initially. Till date, the argument about which of Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash is superior continues.
Another important difference – Bitcoin’s official website is Bitcoin.org, while Bitcoin Cash’s is Bitcoin.com. Hopefully next time, you can differentiate the two cryptocurrencies even if you couldn’t before now.
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