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.
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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.
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.
What do you think about Bitcoin Cash over the past two weeks? How do you envision BCH going forward? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Images via Peakpx, Coin Dance data, Keys4coins, and Bitgo.
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