Cryptocurrency markets have started to rebound in value as the spring begins in 2018, but one particular cryptocurrency — bitcoin cash — has been on a relentless upswing as the network approaches another hard fork this May. This year traders and bitcoin cash (BCH) proponents believe the decentralized digital currency and the BCH network has a lot of innovation forthcoming which will propel its adoption to new heights.

Bitcoin Cash is Poised for a Massive Breakout

Over the past few weeks, bitcoin cash has become a highly sought-after digital currency within the cryptocurrency economy. There is a lot of demand for BCH during the past seven days as the currency’s markets have seen weekly gains of over 56 percent at the time of publication. Moreover, on the peer-to-peer trading platform Shapeshift, the most popular trade today by a landslide is bitcoin core (BTC) for BCH.

The Bitcoin Cash network has managed to accumulate a massive amount of infrastructure and support over the last nine months, and more so than any cryptocurrency launched to-date. Today we’re going to discuss the top five reasons why the decentralized cryptocurrency bitcoin cash is headed for a massive breakout in adoption and valuation this year. Lots of individuals and organizations believe BCH is a serious contender in the world of cryptocurrencies, and the past nine months is just the beginning. This week, the Bitmain Technologies operated mining organization, Antpool, had similar words to say about the bitcoin cash ecosystem.

“The Bitcoin Cash blockchain is at the tipping point of becoming a widely used public blockchain,” explains the mining operation Antpool this past Friday.

Infrastructure and Support

It’s been close to nine months since the August 1 hard fork, and since then the digital currency bitcoin cash has received a ton of infrastructure support from wallet providers and exchanges. No other cryptocurrency has received the support that BCH garnered so quickly in such a little time frame. For instance, BCH is supported by the major exchanges Bitstamp, Coinbase, Kraken, Bithumb, GDAX, Binance, Poloniex, Bittrex, and more. Bitcoin cash also has a slew of well-known wallet providers supporting the chain such as Edge, Bread, Jaxx, Copay, Exodus, Ledger, Trezor, Stash, Mobi, and many more. Moreover, BCH has six full node implementations including Bitcoin ABC, Unlimited, XT, Parity, Flowee, and Bitprim. These teams alongside the blockchain firm Nchain are all contributing to the permissionless and open development environment tied to the BCH project.

Alongside those specific infrastructure providers, BCH merchant acceptance is massive compared to any other cryptocurrency out there besides BTC. Due to integrations with Bitpay’s payment processor services, thousands of merchants now accept bitcoin cash including well-known companies like Microsoft, Newegg, and more. Additionally the “Accept Bitcoin Cash Initiative” has an online compendium of merchants who accept BCH as well. Soon with initiatives like Openbazaar now utilizing BCH and Purse.io support on the way, bitcoin cash will cover nearly everything BTC does as far as infrastructure.

A Passionate Grassroots Community

Similarly to the bitcoin cash blockchain sharing the same history as the BTC chain, there are a large amount of BCH supporters that have been around since the early days when there was only one chain. Many BCH proponents supported BTC until the scaling debate showed Core developers would continue to be stubborn and unwilling to compromise. Lots of these former BTC supporters started forming an alternative community well before the August 1 hard fork. Many of them were banned from the Reddit forum /r/bitcoin for merely trying to discuss increasing the block size. Others realized earlier on that Bitcoin Core developers were stagnating the project and started working on separate software clients because the Core team created a development technocracy. The original Satoshi reference client was suddenly used in a genius ‘PR stunt’ and was gifted the name ‘Core’ when the client was never called that name in the early days. Suddenly there was a team of ‘Core’ developersadvertised on a ‘Core’ website, even though ironically most of them dislike being referred to as ‘Core’ developers.

Because of the blatant reference client coup d’état after the August hard fork, a strong community had already formed with an uncensored forum and a community willing to discuss upgrades and protocol changes. Last November just a few months after the blockchain split, the BCH community performed a successful hard forkwhich fixed the network’s Difficulty Adjustment Algorithm (DAA). The fork led to a favorable outcome where the profitability between BCH and the BTC chain has remained perfectly consistent. Over the past nine months, the BCH community has rallied behind the project pushing adoption and resurrecting applications neutered by the Core development team’s high fees and unreliable transfer times. So far the BCH community has been relentlessly passionate, moving past the trolling and concentrating on making bitcoin cash a cryptocurrency that works. In addition to the strong adherence to principles, there are many other facets of the BCH community that show like-minded passion such as the Bitcoin Cash Fund a nonprofit initiative dedicated to spreading BCH adoption. Then there’s @eatBCH, the outpost that feeds low-income Venezuelan citizens with food paid for with donated bitcoin cash.   

Low-Cost Transaction Fees

Let’s face it bitcoin cash network fees are cheaper than most blockchain networks, and with improved scaling the fees should always remain relatively low. For instance on April 20, 2018, the Bitcoin Core (BTC) median network fee was $0.20 cents per transaction. Even though people think that the BTC network fee is low, compared to the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) median network fee it is huge, as BCH fees are $0.0028 — that’s less than a third of a U.S. penny. Further, BCH network fees have remained consistent and should stay low as the protocol upgrades to a 32 MB block size leaving plenty of room for massive amounts of cheap transactions.

from Bitcoin.com