Today Bitcoin Cash (EXANTE: Bitcoin.Cash) will hardfork without creating a new cryptocurrency. Developers will upgrade the block size from 8MB to 32MB which should improve the functionality of the network with the upgrade scheduled for 16:00 UTC (12:00 ET)
Why it is important
- Increasing block size to 32MB will significantly raise the number of transactions BCH can handle.
- However, large blocks are spreading slower over the network and this can lead to an increased amount of abandoned blocks.
Moreover, in the updated version of BCH, data carrier will be increased to 220 bytes which will allow users to attach additional data to the block. That can be the start of a smart-contracts option for Bitcoin Cash in the future. Because today's hardfork owners will not get any free cryptocurrency, the market situation of BCH didn’t change much.
For 17:06 Moscow Time, Bitcoin Cash trades for $1,423.24
According to Cryptovest, some analytics are pretty skeptical of BCH’s hardfork.
At the moment, the usage of Litecoin remains higher, with transactions well ahead of the BCH levels. There are also reports that for Bitcoin Cash, even the 8 MB blocks are empty.
Experts recommend to BCH owners use the newest versions of their wallets and to postpone transactions during the fork time. Some cryptocurrency exchanges are planning to close their BCH wallets and to wait until an upgrade will be completed.
By Nadya Astam