What to Expect From BCH Hardfork?

The bitcoin cash hardfork date (November 15) is drawing ever closer, however, if previously the hardforks didn’t split the community and went by rather peacefully, this time there are two distinct camps.

The hardfork itself is nothing out of the ordinary since bitcoin cash has a planned update every six months. It is basically just an irreversible upgrade, and bitcoin cash in itself is a wonderful example of this, it is a hardfork from bitcoin, which lead us to have two separate and functioning cryptocurrencies. Because a hardfork depends on the miners, it is a simple procedure, when there is no conflict of interest, all the miners simply shift to the new paradigm and the crypto carries on its existence, just in a new form.

What is the difference between the father and his son? The most important difference is the function of the cryptos. Bitcoin (the father) has very small block sizes, currently, the average block size is around 1mb and does not excel at transaction speed, whereas bitcoin cash has an 8mb sized block, which allows it to process a lot more transactions every day.

However, the upcoming hardfork is experiencing a split in opinion. All involved want to optimize bitcoin cash, but no single consensus was reached. In turn, there are now three ways the crypto can go: bitcoin ABC, bitcoin SV, and bitcoin Unlimited.

How do these three hardfork options differ between themselves? First it is important to say that each proposed update aims to optimize the crypto, that is their core goal, however, they differ in opinions what exactly should be optimized.

Bitcoin ABC is the next logical step of the original bitcoin cash protocol. The update is proposing to introduce smart contract capabilities (like ethereum), better scalability and oracle services. This version of the update is backed up by the original developers as well as Jihan Wu co-founder of Bitmain and Roger Ver, the founder of bitcoin.com.

Bitcoin SV, on the other hand, wants to replace the bitcoin ABC script for its very own and wants to expand the block size from the current 32mb to 128mb and stands for Satoshi's Vision. This version of the upgrade is promoted by Craig Wright, who claims that he is Satoshi Nakamoto and this fork will bring the community closer to his “original vision” of what bitcoin should have been.

Both parties have influential figures pressing for their preferred update.

Roger Ver is in favor of the bitcoin ABC update. Ver is a crypto evangelist and entrepreneur, who has invested in numerous crypto startups including Ripple, Bitpay and Kraken, and has been propagating the mainstream adoption of bitcoin.

On the other side of the debate, there is Craig Wright, an Australian businessman, computer scientist, and crypto advocate. Wright has announced that he was a core developer of the bitcoin protocol and has claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto.

There would be no problem if the two different paths were compatible, but they are not. This means that the community will be forced to choose either or. However, a third option does exist.

Bitcoin Unlimited was proposed by Andrew Stone, whose company is the second most popular bitcoin cash client, offers the community to combine the two offered paths of optimization by uptaking the bitcoin Unlimited client.

What does this mean for the community? Well, if the camps don't come up with a compromise before the hardfork date, then this will split bitcoin cash, meaning that we will have two different cryptos, which in its turn could lead to devaluation of bitcoin cash and problems with merchant adoption.

The other option is that those with bitcoin cash will double their coins, as was the case with the original bitcoin/bitcoin cash hardfork.

The good news for the users is that a number of top crypto exchanges are supporting the update.

There is not much time for the community to decide which path they will follow and ultimately we will see what the miners will choose and whether bitcoin cash will split into two separate cryptos or stay intact.

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