Bitcoin's infamous fork, Bitcoin Cash, is set to fork itself next month with a planned update which is aimed at increasing the amount of transactions the BCH network can handle as well as adding back in some of the features that ended up not making the cut when Satoshi Nakamoto released Bitcoin back in 2009.
The main point of the upcoming Bitcoin Cash fork is to increase the block size parameter from 8 MB to 32 MB. One of the reasons why Bitcoin Cash came into existence was due to a split between members of the Bitcoin community who wanted to increase the block size to increase the amount of transactions that could be processed and those who wanted to keep the current block size parameter and instead look towards implementing other features such as the lightning network. In theory, quadrupling Bitcoin Cash's block size parameter from 8 MB to 32 MB would see BCH process more transactions than Bitcoin as more transactions could be processed per block.
The fork also aims to increase the amount of data that can be stored in the "OP_RETURN"field from 80 bytes to 220 bytes. This would provide additional capabilities for the BCH blockchain as the field is often used for services that require asset creation, time-stamping and rights management to name a few.
Not only that, but the Bitcoin Cash fork will look to re-introduce smart-contracts which Satoshi Nakamoto omitted from Bitcoin. These smart-contracts shouldn't be confused with those featured on the Ethereum blockchain where developers can create dApps, but BCH's smart contracts should allow for further options and functionality when sending and receiving Bitcoin Cash between users.
The Bitcoin Cash fork was announced back in November and is set to take place on May 15.
It will be interesting to see how this fork affects interest and adoption of Bitcoin Cash which has up until now had a negative reputation. It's clear that they are taking a very different approach to the Bitcoin team when it comes to scalability and increasing the number of transactions per block, although whether or not it will allow BCH to overtake Bitcoin still appears to be seen, if somewhat unlikely at this stage.
The price of Bitcoin Cash currently sits at $1,413 with a marketcap of over $24 billion. Bitcoin currently sits at $9,359 with a marketcap of $160 billion.