Yesterday, the Bitcoin Cash ecosystem marked 2 years since Bitcoin Core split to birth Bitcoin Cash. This important milestone was celebrated with an announcement by Roger Ver citing the imminent launch of a BCH- fiat cryptocurrency exchange.
This exchange will be different compared to the recently launched alternative to LocalBitcoin.com and it will back BCH as its base-pair against other cryptocurrencies.
BCH Price Watch
After a slight pullback, BCH found support at the $320 zone. Presently, the price is moving higher as the bulls gear up to breach the $340 resistance area. If the bulls are strong enough, the price could soar towards the $350 resistance. At press time, BCH has gained 2.31% in the last 24 hours to trade at $335.98.
Bitcoin.Com Is Set To Launch Its Very Own Cryptocurrency Exchange
Roger Ver, who was the CEO of Bitcoin.com, quietly stepped down and is now the Executive Chairman while Stefan Rust is the firm’s CEO, as noted by Rory via twitter. However, Roger made the big announcement that Bitcoin.com is launching a cryptocurrency exchange.
According to Roger, this exchange will be decentralized and it will work in close association with the traditional banking sector to facilitate deposits and withdrawals involving fiat. This exchange will allow traders to trade against popular base currencies such as bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Tether (USDT).
He cited:
“It’s a little bit of a change of pace for us, but we’re actually looking at being able to go with the traditional banking network, where you’ll be able to deposit and withdraw traditional fiat, deposit and withdraw cryptocurrencies. But the really big news is that Bitcoin Cash will be the base pair that everything else will be traded against.”
This new cryptocurrency exchange will debut on Monday, September 2nd and it will have high-liquidity and a robust engine to support faster trades, and a simple user-friendly interface. Roger added:
“We’re always working to make Bitcoin Cash and other digital assets more accessible to everyone. Back in June, we released Local.Bitcoin.com where you can buy and sell Bitcoin Cash specifically. Now, with the Bitcoin.com Exchange, you can diversify your cryptocurrency portfolio, too.”
The news of a BCH crypto exchange was received positively by most BCH enthusiasts on the official Bitcoin Cash subreddit, r/BTC, while others articulated that launching an exchange would increase regulatory pressure on the Bitcoin Cash ecosystem.
Two Years Ago, Bitcoin Cash Was Birthed
On August 1st, 2017, Bitcoin Cash (BCH) came to life on the heels of a contentious hard fork from Bitcoin Core (BTC). Disputes arose in the Bitcoin community as to whether increasing the block size was necessary with some members like Roger Ver pushing for a block size increase as failure to do so was limiting bitcoin to a digital investment as opposed to being a transactional currency.
As the dispute intensified, more people suggested a split to solve the ideological differences despite proposals to use SegWit, a third-party on-chain solution.
The Case To Date
Bitcoin Cash uses Simple Ledger protocol to support its tokens. This protocol is in direct contrast to BTC’s protocol, Lightning and Blockstream’s Liquid Network. Additionally, its block size limit currently stands at 8 megabytes. Meanwhile, BTC’s block size remains at 1MB which is mostly utilized to capacity whereas BCH’s capacity is underutilized.
The jury is still out on whether the hard fork was really necessary due to the fact that BCH did not take off after splitting from BTC. However, some BCH enthusiasts are happy with the fact that BCH has maintained its original scaling vision. One such person is Emin Gun Sirer, a Professor at Cornell who tweeted:
“I like Bitcoin Cash for its purity of vision. Hardware trends tell us that, if you were happy with bitcoin at 2015, you should be just as happy with much larger blocks today. BCH is exploring how far one can ride these trends. Godspeed!”
Notably, on July 13, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin proposed using Bitcoin Cash to solve Ethereum’s scalability issue in the short-term. Buterin said he preferred Bitcoin Cash citing three reasons: “it provides a data throughput of 53 kilobytes per second unlike Ethereum’s 8 kilobytes, has very low fees and the fact that the Bitcoin Cash community is cordial and will likely allow other people to use the blockchain “for whatever they want as long as they pay the transaction fees”.
Bitcoin Cash may not be at BTC’s level yet, but we can all admit that this ecosystem is flourishing and as it celebrates its 2nd year anniversary, it has a few feathers in its cap.