Do you know how to buy Bitcoin Cash (BCH)? If not, you’ve come to the right place. We’ll go over some of the basics on what Bitcoin Cash is about, and how to buy it on crypto exchanges and platforms in Canada.
Since the project’s launch, Bitcoin Cash remains a stalwart cryptocurrency with a market capitalization significant enough to rank the project consistently in the top 10 of all cryptocurrencies around the world. The fact that it shares Bitcoin’s brand name certainly helps maintain its value, but the fundamental principles of the project are the real reason many savvy investors choose Bitcoin Cash over the original Bitcoin.
Bitcoin Cash is yet another altcoin project designed to be faster and more scalable than the original Bitcoin. Learning how to buy Bitcoin Cash from a cryptocurrency exchange in Canada is a key thing to learn for those that want to understand the points of difference between Bitcoin and all other iterations of the Bitcoin family of cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, Bitcoin SV etc…). Learning more about each of these projects is also a fantastic way to introduce yourself to the broader altcoin market without having to understand blockchain implementations drastically different from the original Bitcoin coding structure.
Learning about Bitcoin Cash and how to buy it in Canada is basically a way to dip your toe in the water with an altcoin that offers just enough of a unique approach to its value proposition to warrant having its own name and its own objectives, but not so much that it’s intimidating.
To many Bitcoin Cash enthusiasts, owning and using Bitcoin Cash coins is much more practical for making day-to-day payments and doing business. If you’re considering purchasing BCH and adding it to your portfolio, this piece will help you decide whether or not Bitcoin Cash is really the better way to go before you invest in it.
Who Created Bitcoin Cash?
While the original Bitcoin network is credited to one name (or pseudonym if you will), Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin Cash is simply a by-product of the existing Bitcoin coding structure. This means developers essentially created Bitcoin Cash. There is no single individual responsible for its whitepaper and it’s not a truly original project.
There is however one person largely responsible for extolling the virtues of Bitcoin Cash upon the cryptocurrency community. That’s Roger Ver. Ver is a venture capitalist and an early adopter of cryptocurrencies, achieving a significant wealth through his early investment in Bitcoin. Ver’s presence as a thought leader in the blockchain community is what earns him the nickname “Bitcoin Jesus”. Ver believes in cryptocurrency so much that he lives in Japan because of it. He drew the ire of the U.S. government for his early involvement in Bitcoin before it was popular and vowed to never again live in the United States because of it.
Ver actively began promoting the project in 2017. He once again played a big role in educating the crypto community, this time talking about how Bitcoin Cash would be more suitable for day-to-day transactions and commerce thanks to its cheaper network fees, bigger block sizes and faster transaction speed.
Who is Bitcoin Cash?
Bitcoin Cash is essentially the little brother of Bitcoin. The project exists because a group of developers decided to deviate from the original project and officially forked the Bitcoin network on August 1, 2017. The whole point of forking was to increase the block size of the network to 8 MB. Why is it important to increase block size?
Bitcoin’s blockchain organizes transactions into groups. Validating those transactions to ensure actors securing the network aren’t behaving maliciously double spending coins or somehow counterfeiting coins requires computing power. Participants lending their computing power to the network use it to solve cryptographic puzzles that allow transactions to be considered valid. The process of solving these puzzles is called mining.
In order to make processing transactions on a large scale more efficient, transactions have to be organized in blocks. The bigger the block size, the larger number of transactions that can be processed at once. When the Bitcoin blockchain first launched in 2009, not a lot of people knew about it or cared to validate the idea of a decentralized digital currency taking over the world. Today the sentiment surrounding Bitcoin is much more positive and many more people around the globe know about it. It’s for this reason that a larger block size became necessary.
Many people remember hearing about Bitcoin’s price explosion at the end of 2017, but what some forget is that the hoopla surrounding cryptocurrencies created an environment where if one person wanted to send Bitcoin to another, they essentially had to pay a much higher fee to push their transaction through the network and complete it. Imagine spending $30 to send $100 to a friend. That’s exactly what was happening on the Bitcoin network at the time. That’s why Bitcoin Cash exists today.
Bitcoin Cash allows individuals to transact in a cheaper and faster way than the original Bitcoin could offer in 2017. Today, thanks to implementations like Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, paying $30 in fees on a $100 transaction is no longer a problem. Still, investors and Bitcoin Cash proponents are keeping the project alive not just because of technological implementations, but also because of philosophical differences that pushed developers to fork away from Bitcoin.
Looking to buy Bitcoin Cash in Canada? Read more to get started.
The Key Benefits Of Bitcoin Cash
Bitcoin Cash exists for many of the same reasons that other altcoin projects do. To make transactions, faster, cheaper and more secure than the competition, Bitcoin included. That said, Bitcoin Cash offers many key benefits to users and investors that separate it from the rest of the altcoin market.
Familiarity: While many of the thousands of altcoin projects currently available on the market today offer vastly different approaches to issues surrounding scalability and transaction fees, Bitcoin Cash carries with it the cache of Bitcoin’s brand name and much of its original implementations along with the upside of an altcoin.
Bigger block sizes: Bitcoin Block sizes are just 1 MB. A Bitcoin Cash block is 8 MB. Put simply, the Bitcoin Cash network can fit significantly more transactions in each block than Bitcoin. This makes confirming large volumes of transactions more efficient.
Transaction speed: the Bitcoin network can process approximately seven transactions per second. The Bitcoin Cash network can process 116 transactions per second. That’s a huge gap! It’s why many proponents of Bitcoin Cash view it as a solid long-term investment for those ready to delve deeper and reach beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Investment Upside: Many investors view Bitcoin Cash as an altcoin project that has way more upside than most competitors. Hard-core proponents obviously believe Bitcoin Cash has more upside than Bitcoin itself. To this point, the return on investment with Bitcoin Cash over the last three years is actually significantly lower than Bitcoin, but that’s exactly why many believe that the fundamentals of Bitcoin Cash dictate potentially exponential growth in the not too distant future.
How to Buy Bitcoin Cash
Buy Bitcoin Cash in Canada with Netcoins. It’s an easy way to get started. Registration is free and users have the option to deposit Canadian dollars via e-transfers or online bill payments. Both of those options are free. There is also the option to deposit using a bank wire transfer. Banks charge a fee for that.
Odds are users opening an account with Netcoins specifically to buy Bitcoin Cash may already have cryptocurrency. Those users can simply deposit any number of the cryptos Netcoins currently accepts (including Bitcoin Cash) and get started that way.
Step 1: Open an Account with Netcoins
Opening an account at Netcoins is as simple as choosing a username and password and validating your email address.
Looking to buy Bitcoin Cash in Canada? Read more to get started.
Step 2: Validate Your Identity
Most Canadians can get fully verified without having to upload any ID through the automated KYC process. If ID is required, users can still get started quickly by uploading government issued identification like a driver’s license or Canadian passport.
Step 3: Funding Your Account
Depositing your existing cryptocurrency holdings into your Netcoins account is the easiest and fastest way to get started. Pay only the transaction fees charged by the blockchain and get started trading as soon as your transaction is confirmed.
Using Canadian dollars means opting for Interac e-transfers to get started right away, or using online bill payments or bank wire transfers if you’re willing to wait a few business days and wish to deposit a large amount in one payment.
Step 4: Buy or Sell Bitcoin Cash
Keep in mind that the currency symbols for Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash are very similar. Bitcoin goes by BTC and Bitcoin Cash is BCH.
The fastest way to buy Bitcoin Cash coins is to create an instant market order. A market order is in order to buy or sell a given cryptocurrency at whatever the current market price is. Since Bitcoin Cash is one of the top cryptocurrencies in the world according to market capitalization, buying and selling Bitcoin Cash at a high volume shouldn’t be an issue for most novice and retail investors.
Those wishing to purchase Bitcoin Cash at a specific price can use a limit order. Limit orders only trigger when the given price defined by the user is matched by the current conditions of the market.
Either way, using Netcoins is an easy and secure way for Canadians to get their hands on some Bitcoin Cash. Now that you know a little bit about the project and understand how to buy it on a crypto exchange, feel free to dive deeper into the Bitcoin rabbit hole by going beyond the world’s most valuable cryptocurrency and exploring it’s most promising competition – Bitcoin Cash.
Looking to get started with bitcoin? Netcoins makes it easy for people to buy and sell cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.