On August 16 at approximately 8 am EDT the mining pool Bitclub Network mined an 8MB block on the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) blockchain. Block #479469 cleared over 37,000 transactions from the mempool making it the largest block found so far on the BCH chain. Meanwhile, the BCH network continues to capture infrastructure development and industry support.
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An 8MB Block Found on the Bitcoin Cash Blockchain Clears 37K Transactions
It’s been sixteen days since the inception of Bitcoin Cash, and the network split that took place on August 1. The BCH chain has been trucking along, and miners have processed 918 blocks since the hard fork. On August 16 around 6-7am EDT the BCH network seemed to be suffering from a spam attack as unconfirmed transactions filled up the mempool. Roughly an hour later a massive 8MB block was found by the mining pool Bitclub Network which cleared 37,814 BCH transactions. Two hours later another large block was mined on the BCH chain that was 4MB in size. Coincidently the legacy bitcoin (BTC) blockchain’s mempool has been filling up and has over 48,000 unconfirmed transactions at press time.
At the moment the BCH chain difficulty is performing at 13 percent of BTC’s difficulty. An unknown miner or group of miners has captured a vast amount of the BCH hashrate and has mined 90 percent of all the blocks found. No one has been able to confirm who the mystery miner/miners is or are, as the pool has left no clues to its location or identity. Currently, the BTC blockchain is 1311 blocks ahead of the BCH chain and is still 69 percent more profitable to mine.
Infrastructure Support
BCH markets have remained fairly stable over the course of the past week consistently hovering around the $300 range. The digital currency has also received more support this week from various cryptocurrency businesses within the industry. For instance, Breadwallet released its BCH sending tool for both Android and iOS mobile platforms on August 15. Then BCH supporters got another surprise as Bitpay announced they would allow customers who use the Copay and Bitpay wallets access to the token, after initially saying they wouldn’t offer a tool. Bitpay says they do not plan to fully support the token on the software’s user interface, but they want “wallet users to have the option to retrieve their Bitcoin Cash if they wish to do so.”
In addition to the two wallet tools from Breadwallet and Bitpay, another wallet that supports BCH has been introduced to supporters. Openbazaar developer, Chris Pacia, has developed a wallet for the digital currency that’s currently in its alpha phase. Pacia has asked BCH supporters to help out with testing, and due to the software being in its early stages he cautiously warns not to store large amounts of funds in the wallet. The developer’s BCH wallet project and source code can be found at this repo.
Swiss Private Bank Adds Ether, Litecoin and Bitcoin Cash Asset Management
Bitcoin Suisse AG has revealed another positive announcement for BCH proponents as the firm has detailed Falcon Private Bank will be allowing cryptocurrency asset management for ETH, LTC and bitcoin cash. Just last month news.Bitcoin.com reported on the bank’s initial setup of implementing BTC management, and now its clients can purchase, exchange, and store BCH on the bank’s platform.
Niklas Nikolajsen, the founder, and CEO of Bitcoin Suisse AG, says the firm is thrilled to assist Falcon with the new digital asset additions.
“Bitcoin Suisse is proud to continue to support Falcon Private Bank’s product offering in the field of crypto-assets,” explains Nikolajsen. Falcon Private Bank was the first bank to offer bitcoin directly to its clients, and thus created history. Their decision to follow up by adding ether as well as other crypto-assets has made them the go-to private bank for crypto-asset holders and investors.”
Bitcoin Cash Supporters Remain Optimistic and Tip Each Other On-Chain
BCH supporters seem very optimistic about the future of the digital currency as it has garnered lots of attention these past two weeks. According to Google Trends data, searches for the phrase “Bitcoin Cash” has been more popular than “Ethereum” this week. Additionally, the new cryptocurrency now has its own tip bot for Reddit forums called the “Cash Tip Bot” which can send small micropayments of BCH. Subscribers from the subreddit r/btc have been playing with the tip bot for the past 24-hours as BCH network fees have been extremely low.
What do you think about the current progress for the BCH chain? What do you think about the 8MB block that was found? Let us know your opinions in the comments below.
Images via Shutterstock, Breadwallet, Falcon Private Bank, and Blockchair.
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