A new digital cryptocurrency called Bitcoin Cash has been mined for the first time after the original Bitcoin currency was “forked” to avoid large swings in its value, Mirror has reported.
Like standard Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash is digital money that uses encryption to enable secure transactions.But rather than being developed from scratch, it has been created from the original Bitcoin blockchain – the underlying digital ledger that records any and all transactions made using the currency. By forking the blockchain (which becomes progressively denser as Bitcoin increases) its capacity is increased and it can continue to evolve as more people start mining.
Individuals or companies who want to mine Bitcoin Cash will need speedier computers with more storage space as each block can measure up to 8MB in size.
The original Bitcoin blockchain can only have a 1MB block added to it every 10m.
There were some technical fears about how digital wallets would handle the split, but it appears that no major issues have been reported so far.
At the moment, each Bitcoin Cash coin is worth roughly $400 (£302).
