Bitcoin Cash Thrives During Its First Two Weeks of Life

 It’s been two weeks since the hard fork on August 1, which formed a  new network called Bitcoin Cash (BCH). As the days continue, BCH has  garnered more support over the last two weeks from cryptocurrency-based  businesses, exchanges and wallet providers. 

Bitgo Wallet Announces Bitcoin Cash Support

 It seems like Bitcoin Cash is here to  stay as the network is chugging along and the BCH market has  consolidated around the US$300 range. Currently, the BCH chain has  processed 699 blocks since the hard fork and is still behind the BTC  chain. BCH mining difficulty has dropped quite a bit since our last  update and is currently operating at 13% of BTC’s difficulty. Last week  we reported  that Breadwallet will release its BCH splitting tool on August 14 and  will deploy full support for the chain in the near future. Following  this, businesses like Rocketr, and the Living Room of Satoshi announced BCH support as well last week.  

 Now, the popular multi-signature bitcoin wallet Bitgo has announced  they will be providing a splitting tool for their users to access BCH.  The company says it is “late” delivering the tool, because they didn’t  have enough lead time prior to the fork. However, the company says when  they release the new software it will be far more “comprehensive” than  the company’s previous plan. 

 “Due to strong customer interest,  Bitgo will enable full support of Bitcoin Cash. You’ll soon find a new  coin in the Bitgo interface and be able to fully send and receive BCH  from your Bitgo wallet,” explains Mike Belshe Co-Founder and CEO of  Bitgo. “All Bitgo users with BTC balances prior to the Aug 1st fork date  will see their BCH balances within the Bitgo interface.” 

 

The Bitgo API  will also support BCH, utilizing the new BitGo V2 platform. Developers  will be able to access wallets and send coins with the same unified  interface as used for Litecoin, Ethereum, Ripple, and Royal Mint Gold.
 

Bitcoin Cash Can Now Purchase Game Credits

 Another cryptocurrency company that now  supports BCH is Keys4coins, an online PC game store that only accepts  cryptocurrencies for payment. Users can purchase credits for popular  platforms like Steam, Origin, Xbox Live, Battlenet, GOG.com and more.  The company also sells gift cards for gamers and products like Itunes  cards as well.  

 “We’re happy to announce another  addition to the accepted cryptocurrencies on Keys4coins Bitcoin Cash!  You can now use Bitcoin Cash to pay for your games, gift cards, and  software,” explains Keys4coins. 

 

Now that we have bitcoin with bigger blocks, we hope that bitcoin usage dominance will be back.
 

The Uphill Battle

 Even though the network is here to  stay, the BCH chain still has a long road ahead. Hashpower is still  fairly low, and an “unknown” entity is consuming most of the blocks  being mined. With the price of BTC being so high and BCH hovering around  $300, the profitability to mine BTC is still greater by 70 percent.  

 Bitcoin Cash (BCH) statistics according to Coin Dance on August 14, 2017. Mining profitability and hashrate distribution.  

 In the timeline of being the longest  chain, bitcoin is still a long ways ahead of bitcoin cash by over 1235  blocks. However, because BCH has a built in Emergency Difficulty  Adjustment (EDA) the chain’s difficulty will drop down again  significantly in the near future which will add to the mining  profitability. 

Source :news.bitcoin.com