ELI5 The Controversial BCH Fork (Bitcoin SV)

On November 15th the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) hard fork will take place.

Although there was much backlash from the crypto community, major exchanges decided to support the newly forked cryptocurrencies.

At least two of the largest exchanges, Coinbase and Binance, have announced support for the new BCH (Binance will deposit the newly created crypto on BCH holder accounts, but no trading pair has been announced yet).

ViaBTC has temporarily suspended all BCH deposits due to the upcoming fork.

Software Upgrade Becomes New Cryptocurrency

The idea behind forking BCH, like other similar episodes in the past, was to just perform a software modification.

This usually ends up creating a new cryptocurrency due to someone in the team disagreeing with at least some part of the new project.

That’s how Bitcoin Cash itself was born out of Bitcoin Core and, later on, similar story with Bitcoin Gold (BTG).

Much controversy has taken place between nChain and Bitcoin ABC, who until now were two firm believers in Bitcoin Cash (BCH).

With the disagreement, each is planning their own fork (!!!), generating even more confusion in the cryptocurrency community.

As a result, we might end up with Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin SV (“Satoshi Vision”) and Bitcoin ABC.

Just like in the original Bitcoin Cash fork from Bitcoin Core, the infighting took a very long time, months not weeks.

No agreement was reached and now Bitcoin Cash itself will split into several new cryptocurrencies.

Links

CoinMarketCap Entry

List of bitcoin forks

Bitcoin vs Bitcoin Cash vs Bitcoin SV: the ultimate guide

Bitcoin SV FAQ