Bitcoin Cash Network Completes a Successful Hard Fork

At approximately 4 pm EDT at block height 504031, the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) network successfully hard forked. The fork is a change to the decentralized currency’s consensus rules and aims to upgrade the network’s Difficulty Adjustment Algorithm (DAA).

November 13 is a memorable day for bitcoin cash supporters, as the network is forking in order to fix the BCH blockchain’s DAA. The primary development teams who have been working on the bitcoin cash protocol consensus change include Bitcoin ABC, Unlimited, Nchain, and XT developers. The original DAA applied to the BCH network allowed the currency to thrive but also produced wild hashrate fluctuations. After several DAA proposals were researched and tested by the above-mentioned development teams, the community chose to implement a DAA proposal from Bitcoin ABC’s lead developer Amaury Sechet.

The new BCH consensus change hopes to adjust the difficulty to hashrate to target a mean block interval of 600 seconds. Alongside this, the DAA aims to make sudden difficulty drops and spikes avoidable. For instance, the network will adjust difficulty rapidly when the hashrate changes exponentially, while also avoiding feedback oscillations. Sechet’s DAA is based on a 144-period simple moving average according to the ABC team.