Today is a momentous day for Bitcoin - the day that the UASF, User Activated Soft Fork, activated. The Bitcoin price almost touched $3000 but dropped down around $2700 a little later. The Bitcoin hard fork, MAHF, Miner Activated Hard Fork, occurred at 12:20 UTC - miners that are mining Bitcoin Cash created a transaction block greater than 1 MB in size and forked the Bitcoin network - the creation of Bitcoin Cash.

Bitcoin.com reported "This past March Bitcoin.com launched its mining pool which has garnered quite a bit of hashrate since it started. This is due to the pool offering the best payout plans in the industry with a 110% block reward, 0% fees. Now we are pleased to announce that pool.bitcoin.com members can prepare to mine the Bitcoin Cash (BCC) protocol when the chain starts on August 1st."

Some exchanges are not supporting Bitcoin Cash and many customers tried to get their Bitcoin out of these exchanges before they suspended withdrawals, but to no avail. It was reported that Coinbase had a significant backlog and unfortunately many unhappy customers.

Other News Headlines:

Ethereum Mining Difficulty Exploded Over the Past Three Months - More people want to mine cryptocurrency however this does not bode well for Ethereum miners. As difficulty increases, more powerful hardware is required to mine. It was recently reported that second-hand miners are coming on to the market due to this reason.

Irish Tech Startup Introduces Wearable Dash Payment Wristband - launched a QR code and NFC integrated wristband to allow festival and bar goers to pay for food and drinks using Dash.

Finance minister Gigaba speaks out on Bitcoin regulation in South Africa - "while cryptocurrencies are currently not regulated – they operate without the authority of central banks – a number of institutions were working to address this"

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