Bitcoin cash (BCC)
Hardfork Bitcoin Blockchain (UAHF) August 2017, a group of developers wanted to increase Bitcoin's block size limit to 32MB to increase amount of transactions per block. This change in code, called a hard fork, took effect on 1 August 2017. Which resulted the bitcoin blockchain and the biggest cryptocurrency split in two separate coins.At the time of the fork anyone owning bitcoin was also in possession of the same number of Bitcoin Cash units.
What is a hardfork?
A hard fork (or sometimes hardfork), as it relates to blockchain technology, is a radical change to the protocol that makes previously invalid blocks/transactions valid (or vice-versa). This requires all nodes or users to upgrade to the latest version of the protocol software. Put differently, a hard fork is a permanent divergence from the previous version of the blockchain, and nodes running previous versions will no longer be accepted by the newest version. This essentially creates a fork in the blockchain: one path follows the new, upgraded blockchain, and the other path continues along the old path. Generally, after a short period of time, those on the old chain will realize that their version of the blockchain is outdated or irrelevant and quickly upgrade to the latest version. If both chains find support of users, miners & community this results in 2 coins.
What is the issue with 1 MB blocks?
The one MB limit for the size of every block was originally implemented to lower the possibility of potential spam and DDoS-attacks. While there were not that many transactions happening in the network, the limit wasn’t affecting anything at all.
As Bitcoin transactions increased, the one MB limit caused delays in processing of blocks, which unnecessarily extended the transition times. The situation experienced the most issues around May 2017, when Bitcoin users reported having to wait days for block confirmations.
Users could opt in to pay higher transaction fees to increase the speed of the confirmation, but this approach basically rendered Bitcoin useless as a payment method, especially when it came to smaller transactions.
Bitcoin Cash hard fork into Bitcoin ABC
In November 2018 there will be a new hardfork of the Bitcoin Cash blockchain, which will split the BCH into 2 units as well called Bitcoin ABC.
In any case of hard forks we advise to take extra care of your private keys. Read more tips on how set up a cold wallet.
