Today, Bitcoin has officially forked into two versions: the original version and the new version. The new version of Bitcoin is named "Bitcoin Cash" and is specifically used to buy and sell goods online. The current transaction price of Bitcoin Cash is about $215.
It should be noted that this change did not have an impact on the value of the original currency. As of now, the price of the original Bitcoin is about US$2,750, not far from the historical high of US$3,000, and the currency value of the new Bitcoin is about 7% to 10% of the old Bitcoin.
Data from CoinMarketCap shows that the newly launched "Bitcoin Cash" surged sharply after its launch, once soaring 48% to $422, but then gave up all the gains. As of 4:55 pm Eastern Time on Tuesday (4.55 am on Wednesday, Beijing time), "Bitcoin Cash" fell by about 26% to around $214. Data from Kraken Exchange, another digital currency trading platform, shows that the current transaction price of "Bitcoin Cash" is around $197.
"Bitcoin Cash" can currently only be traded on some platforms, and its market value only constitutes a small part of Bitcoin's market value.
The “split” is significant because it will create a new competitor to Bitcoin. Bitcoin is the oldest and most expensive digital currency. It’s unclear whether the “split” will be successful and what the new digital currency will be worth.
If the “split” is successful, pre-split Bitcoin holders will receive an equivalent amount of “Bitcoin Cash” for free – which can be exchanged for fiat currency or other digital currencies.
For this split, Jeff Garzik, founder of blockchain technology company Bloq, explained it vividly. It is a bit like a stock split. One night, I went to bed with 100 Bitcoins. When I woke up the next morning, in addition to 100 Bitcoins, I also had 100 Bitcoin Cash.
On July 21, the Bitcoin fork plan BIP91 has received the support of the entire network's computing power, and it was unanimously agreed to upgrade Segregated Witness first, and upgrade the block size of the underlying blockchain to 2M within the next 6 months. However, a "spoiler" appeared – ViaBTC, a mining pool owned by the mining giant Bitcoin Continent, prepared a hard fork system to launch "Bitcoin Cash" based on the original Bitcoin chain.
