On August 1, 2017, a hard fork or offshoot of the bitcoin Blockchain was launched, bitcoin cash.

What this essentially means is that while you have a whole new cryptocurrency to transact with, since bitcoin cash is a fork of bitcoin core, the new currency doesn’t need to start from scratch, or say block 0.

In fact, this new currency is being viewed by many as a way to solve some of the issues that are inherent with bitcoin core, such as custom block sizing.

The official bitcoin cash website also announced some new features of this currency that is likely to attract traders, such as:

1. Modified Block Size Limit
   • For bitcoin core, the default block size limit is 2 MB, which the cash fork takes to 8 MB, which many users have been looking forward to.
2. Replay & Wipeout Protection
   • Replay attacks have been a major problem faced by many Cryptocurrencies. With its enhanced protection, bitcoin cash claims to minimize disruption for the user, while allowing two Blockchains to co-exist safely.
3. New SigHash Algorithm
   • Bitcoin cash has brought in a new means of signing transactions, which apart from replay protection, also offers benefits such as better hardware wallet security through input value signing, as well as taking care of the problem of quadratic hashing.

The website also announced, “All Bitcoin holders as of block 478558 are now owners of Bitcoin Cash.”

Given that both forks use almost the same code, it is likely to be easier to develop tools and software for the cash fork, helping users and traders in the currency.