Bitcoin Cash has never mined a block that is 8 MB in size, according to a report by a research group LongHash.
It’s been years since the ‘Great Bitcoin Debate,’ which ignited Bitcoin’s civil war, was brought to public attention. The root of the problem came down to a single technical detail: the Block Size limit.
The primary reason for these problems is the limited number of transactions that can fit into 1MB Bitcoin block – a limit set somewhat arbitrarily by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2010.
A group of influential developers, miners and investors were fed up with Bitcoin’s scalability issues and proposed that Bitcoin should have an increased block size in order to lower transaction times and fees.
Finally, in August 2017, Bitcoin was split using a process known as “Hard Fork.” The hard fork resulted in a new cryptocurrency known as Bitcoin Cash (BCH). The forked coin uses Bitcoin’s blockchain but with a block size limit of 8 megabytes. This vastly allowed more transactions per block.
Bitcoin Cash is yet to make use of its 8 MB block size
A research conducted by a blockchain start-up accelerator LongHash has revealed that Bitcoin Cash has never mined a block that is 8 MB in size. The report reads in part.
“There has only been one day so far where BCH blocks have been more than half full. On January 15, 2018, one year ago today, BCH blocks averaged 59% of their total capacity.”
The report claims that since Bitcoin Cash inception in 2017, its average block size has been 171KB. Basically, this represents only 2.1 percent of the coin’s limit of 8MB.
The report concluded that it is a good sign that Bitcoin Cash blocks aren’t close to reaching their capacity. Others argue that it is due to lack of interest in Bitcoin Cash.
“Some will claim that it’s a positive sign that BCH blocks are not near their capacity, but others will point to the lack of interest in BCH as concerning.”
