On November 15th, Bitcoin Cash underwent its latest hard fork separating the network into two different blockchains.
Bitcoin Cash hard forks every six months or so for maintenance purposes and to update software. Usually, one of the networks dwindles immediately as the Bitcoin Cash community backs the updated blockchain.
But the most recent hard fork diverged from this routine.
Bitcoin Cash developer group Bitcoin ABC – supported by Bitcoin.com founder Roger Ver – has introduced a series of technical upgrades to the network. ABC stands for “Adjustable Blocksize Cap,” and supporters hope to increase block capacity by reordering transactions and modifying code.
A second group called Bitcoin Satoshi’s Vision, aka Bitcoin SV, disagrees with these changes. Supporters, like Craig Wright, advocate restoring the original bitcoin protocol and increasing block size to 128 MB.
In the background, a third faction is also active. Bitcoin Unlimited, led by Andrew Clifford, proposes a compromise between Bitcoin ABC and Bitcoin SV. Bitcoin Unlimited was pushed to the sidelines as Ver and Wright fought on social media, but may be the real winner after all.
At the time of writing, Coin.Dance reports that Bitcoin ABC and Bitcoin Unlimited are leading Bitcoin SV in both hash rate and number of nodes. 41 blocks have been mined since the fork, and Bitcoin ABC has a 12 block lead.
These numbers are very fluid and subject to changes in miner behaviour and community favour. As the hash wars heat up, the future of Bitcoin Cash remains unknown.
