Through the process of ‘forking’, where a blockchain is divided into different entities, cryptocurrencies similar to Bitcoin have been developed. Bitcoin Cash was the first coin created from a Bitcoin fork in August 2017. Later, Bitcoin Gold came into existence in October 2017 and Bitcoin Diamond in November 2017. Forking is usually done to create more efficient options for the existing Bitcoin.
However, according to Weiss Cryptocurrency Ratings, all the Bitcoin-themed clones including Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, Bitcoin Private, and Bitcoin Diamond are flawed in different ways.
Additionally, the researchers at Weiss also believe that Bitcoin is not perfect either. BTC faces problems during upgrades, the transactions are slow as they take up to an hour to confirm, and has a high transaction fee during the peak times. As the clones are based on Bitcoin itself, they also show similar flaws.
Discussing the advantages of Bitcoin, Weiss notes:
“Here’s Bitcoin’s strength, its first-mover advantage: Despite all its deficiencies, Bitcoin can boast one thing that no other cryptocurrency in the world has: global brand recognition. Most people around the world have heard of Bitcoin; they know what it is.”
This is why clones of Bitcoin were created; to use its success as an aid to moving forward. While they aim at solving the flaws in BTC, they also inherit the inefficiencies in it.
Weiss explains:
“All of these were launched in an attempt to solve just one or two issues plaguing Bitcoin. So each Bitcoin copycat measures itself against the original — claiming to be superior, and hoping to enjoy Bitcoin’s popularity plus a bit more.”
‘Slow speed, poor scalability, high costs, energy inefficiency, lack of privacy..’ are some of the flaws of Bitcoin clones, that they share with Bitcoin.
Bitcoin Cash is 8 times faster than Bitcoin and has more decentralized mining, solving just 2 of the problems which are not enough, even though it is an exception in the flawed list. Furthermore, it follows the deflationary model, making it difficult to succeed in the future.
Read more: https://cryptoflash.io/posts/757110