{"id":35844,"date":"2018-11-01T11:59:56","date_gmt":"2018-11-01T06:29:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=35844"},"modified":"2018-11-01T11:59:56","modified_gmt":"2018-11-01T06:29:56","slug":"the-bitcoin-split-is-good-for-progress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/the-bitcoin-split-is-good-for-progress\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bitcoin split is good for progress:\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.livemint.com\/Opinion\/eKUGiOLTEKt0jcgrq5KbfK\/The-Bitcoin-split-is-good-for-progress.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Bitcoin split is good for progress<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Context:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bitcoin cash, the new alternative cryptocurrency, is crashing<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Introduction:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tuesday, bitcoin split in two following a years-long battle in the community over the rules that should guide the cryptocurrency&#8217;s network<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The split resulted in the creation of new cryptocurrency, bitcoin cash, which has the same basic underpinnings, but plays by different rules.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The idea behind the \u2018hard fork\u2019 to form bitcoin and bitcoin cash is to increase transaction speed and mainstream acceptance of the cryptocurrecny.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>About Bitcoins:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bitcoin is a digital currency that isn\u2019t tied to any bank or government.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The coins are created by miners, who operate computer farms that verify other user\u2019s transactions by solving complex mathematical puzzles.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These miners receive bitcoin in exchange.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is also possible to exchange bitcoin for US dollars and other currencies.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For bitcoin, with a maximum block size of 1 MB (megabyte), it\u2019s just two or three transactions per second.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Uses of Bitcoins:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bitcoin is used for multiple purposes including funding companies, investing cash and transferring money without fees.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is commonly associated with criminal activity such as drug dealing, cyber crime and money laundering, \u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In 2015, RBI published a financial stability report on disruptions in financial technology. In the report, it highlighted the importance of \u2018private blockchains\u2019 which have the potential to transform how bank back-end operations functions, as well increasing the payments.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The digital currency can be used to move money inexpensively across borders within a matter of minutes without even having a bank account.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Why is bitcoin splitting?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The bitcoin community has been divided on how to solve its scaling issue. Currently, only 1 megabyte of transactions can be processed at any one time, leading to delays.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Demand for Bitcoin has been so high in recent months that those creating the cryptocurrency can&#8217;t keep up, slowing transactions.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For bitcoin to continue to scale and have the potential to become a globally used currency, this slowdown in transactions has to be addressed.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b style=\"font-size: 1rem;\">Who is supporting Bitcoin Cash?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bitcoin exchanges are divided on whether or not to support Bitcoin Cash. Several exchanges, such as BitMEX, Bitstamp and Coinbase, have said they will not support or allow trading of Bitcoin Cash on their exchanges, which means investors holding bitcoins on these sites will not receive any new tokens.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some exchanges are also suspending bitcoin trading, withdrawal and deposits around the time of the fork.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Issues involved:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The bitcoin network is limited in how quickly it can shuffle around digital money<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Payment delays have become more common and worrisome<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A bitcoin payment takes an hour to clear.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bitcoin\u2019s slowness also leads to the proliferation of other cryptocurrencies, or altcoins, some of which claim higher processing speed as an advantage<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Many exchanges are still hesitating whether to trade bitcoin cash.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Key points:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Eight crytocurrencies had a market capitalization of more than $1 billion.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bitcoin is still by far the biggest, with a market cap of more than $44 billion, but that\u2019s not much as far as currencies go, especially global ones.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Rivals such as ether, with a $ 20 billion market cap, have the potential to catch up.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">People who kept their cryptocurrency on their hard drives got a choice between bitcoin and the new version, bitcoin cash.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Many investors, who held bitcoin through exchanges that didn\u2019t support the \u201chard fork\u201d, such as Coinbase, were deprived of the choice.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Conclusion:<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bitcoins have potential to fight counterfeiting in developing countries like India, but not if transaction fees are higher than the living wages. So there is need to transfer money quickly from one address to another with bare minimum fees.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For bitcoin to become a simple global payment system for anyone to use, it needs to get over its growing pains. The solution to that is to make a whole new currency using similar software.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Bitcoin split is good for progress:\u00a0 Context: Bitcoin cash, the new alternative cryptocurrency, is crashing Introduction: \u00a0On Tuesday, bitcoin split in two following a years-long battle in the community over the rules that should guide the cryptocurrency&#8217;s network The split resulted in the creation of new cryptocurrency, bitcoin cash, which has the same basic&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/the-bitcoin-split-is-good-for-progress\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The Bitcoin split is good for progress:\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704775290},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35844\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}