New kid on the blockchain: Bitcoin Cash holds above $200 after hard fork, Bitcoin sees minor fall

A sign is seen outside a business where a Bitcoin ATM is located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada June 3, 2017. REUTERS/Chris Helgren - RTX38TW3

The conclusion of bitcoin’s ‘civil war’ started at 17:50 IST on August 1 and ended when mining firm ViaBTC mined the ‘genesis block’ for Bitcoin Cash at around 23:44 IST, making the split official.

Welcome to the world, Shuya Yang! And Bitcoin cash! https://t.co/ymh4Ciwypb

— ViaBTC (@ViaBTC) August 1, 2017

Post the genesis block creation, bitcoin cash was trading at levels above USD 250 on digital currency exchange Kraken.

Bitcoin cash futures had started to trade from levels of USD 550 since July 23 and saw a steady decline to levels below USD 300 since then. But it was a roller coaster ride for the price of the new cryptocurrency today as it saw a sharp uptick near the hard fork initiation time followed by an equally steep fall.

The price for bitcoin cash started to rally at around 17:50 IST (12:20 pm UTC) and peaked at levels of USD 425 before it started giving up the gain. At the time of reporting it was trading at levels of USD 210, as per Coinmarketcap.

This split was planned by a few developers who disagreed with SegWit, which is a popular bitcoin software update aimed to solve the cryptocurrency’s transaction congestion. SegWit is likely to get activated by late August to mid September.

The price of the original bitcoin rallied above USD 2900 in early trade but has since seen a gradual pullback to levels below USD 2750, as per Coindesk.

Bitcoin 1-day price movement:

How is bitcoin cash different from bitcoin?

Bitcoin Cash is different from its parent in two ways, 1) it directly increases the block size to 8 MB and 2) it does not implement SegWit.

The group behind the idea of Bitcoin Cash is of the opinion that the world's first cryptocurrency -- Bitcoin -- was not fulfilling its intended purpose of being a mode of transaction. They aimed to have a currency where transactions will be settled in minutes at just a nominal fee.

Who all get bitcoin cash?

All current bitcoin holders were automatically supposed to own bitcoin cash as well. However, if users stored their bitcoins with a third party such as an exchange, then they will get the new currency only if the exchange supported both the versions.

Cryptocurrency exchange Kraken said in a tweet that it had credited bitcoin cash to all of its accounts.

BCH credited to all accounts now. BCH funding will not be avail for many hours yet, first BCH block was only mined a short while ago.

— Kraken Exchange (@krakenfx) August 1, 2017

Indian exchanges like Zebpay and Unocoin were not supporting bitcoin cash or its trading and had advised users to move their bitcoins to a wallet where they could control the private key on or before July 31.

Those who transferred their bitcoins to a wallet as mentioned above will receive an equal amount of bitcoin cash as well.

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