Bitcoin’s introduction in the market paved the way for the birth of other cryptocurrencies. With its decentralized underlying technology, Bitcoin revolutionized the monetary system by offering a cost-effective and transparent process for day-to-day transactions.
In its early years, Bitcoin’s small community could be managed since the blockchain wasn’t overwhelmed with thousands of transactions every day. However, as Bitcoin grew and entered mainstream consumption, the blockchain became congested with requests, which affected the processing speed of transactions.
Due to this, many members of the crypto community grew concerned since incessant delays would mean an increase in transaction fees, as well as lead to scalability issues. To solve this, Bitcoin hard forks were introduced.
Bitcoin SV early beginnings
In 2017, Bitcoin Cash (BCH) was implemented as an attempt to solve the scalability problem of Bitcoin. It increased the original BTC block size, which meant that more data can be processed in a shorter amount of time.
Bitcoin Cash can handle 116 transactions per second, while the original Bitcoin network could only do seven, which isn’t an ideal number if it were to be adopted on a global scale. However, despite the many updates, BCH is still nowhere near robust enough, so it underwent another hard fork which produced Bitcoin SV.
What is Bitcoin SV?
Also known as Bitcoin Satoshi Vision, Bitcoin SV is a hard fork of Bitcoin Cash launched on November 15, 2018, to address BCH’s scalability issues and to bring back the first version of the Bitcoin protocol. The Bitcoin SV protocol originally had a block size of 128 MB, but after the Quasar Protocol Upgrade in 2019, the block size further increased to 2 GB. Compared to Bitcoin’s original block size of 1 MB, this size is significantly bigger.
Since the block size is more spacious, nodes can adjust the block size they want to mine and miners can process more transactions. As a result, miners receive bigger incentives at a faster rate, driving them to add more blocks of transactions on the chain.
Bitcoin SV uses the same mining algorithm as Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash called the SHA-256. This type of algorithm can only be used on a device that recognizes SHA-256 codes. Since the machine and algorithm are used on the three versions of Bitcoin, it allows miners to select which token is the most profitable at the time of mining.
Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV: What’s the difference?
At first glance, the three assets may seem like similar tokens but there is a great difference between the three. For instance, Bitcoin is often considered by investors as the world’s digital gold since more users hold onto their assets for the long term instead of spending them in day-to-day transactions.
Bitcoin Cash (BCH), on the other hand, aims to be the cryptocurrency for everyday transactions. However, the current scalability of the blockchain isn’t robust enough to adopt a seamless transaction for day-to-day use.
Finally, Bitcoin SV aims to restore the original state of Bitcoin or Satoshi’s Vision as a global monetary system by increasing incentives for miners, improving user experience and lowering transaction fees.
Bitcoin SV features you should know about
Scalable
According to an article by US-based crypto exchange Gemini, Bitcoin SV can handle at least 300 transactions per second. The Bitcoin SV team uses an algorithm called the GBTN or Gigabit Testnet that can accommodate a whopping 5,500 transactions.
In May 2020, Bitcoin SV integrated the TAAL service provider on the chain, which added 369 MB worth of blocks or at least 1.3 million BSV transactions. While Bitcoin SV retains its 2 GB block size, the feat just proves that BSV is on its way to provide an even more robust service compared to Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash.
Secure
Bitcoin SV aims to be a global digital currency and to make this happen, its developers ensured that the blockchain is as secure as it can be. Before launching, the BSV team operated several Quality Assurance Tests on the mining node system. This enabled full traceability to ensure that every transaction goes through a rigorous validation and authentication process.
Genesis Upgrade
Bitcoin SV underwent the Genesis Upgrade that fully restored the original version of the Bitcoin Protocol. This included the features and functionality included in the Bitcoin Whitepaper when it was released in 2008.
After the Genesis Update, the network scaled up its block size to 2 GB which enabled Bitcoin SV to accommodate a higher volume of transactions and increase the mining fee for miners. Eventually, the Genesis Upgrade will remove the limitations of the BSV blockchain and function without the integration of side chains such as Lightning Network.
The Lightning Network is a technology layered on the blockchain to address scalability issues. However, this protocol reduces the incentives supposed to be for the miners and increases the transaction fees for users.
Where can you buy Bitcoin SV?
Coingecko
Coingecko is one of the top exchanges where you can buy a wide range of cryptocurrencies. Currently, it’s one of the best places where you can purchase BSV tokens. As of writing, it offers BSV for $176.11. When buying BSV, you can check the site for an overview. It also features market charts, historical data and other crypto markets if you want to try trading.
BuyBSV.com
Another place where you can get BSV is BuyBSV.com which is the official page for buying BSV tokens. You have the option to select any currency you want to use for purchasing. All you have to do is tweak the currency tab and select the number of tokens you want to buy. Additionally, it will show you the credit card options they accept and the limit cap for each card.
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