With almost 6,000 blocks mined on the Bitcoin Cash network, now is a good time to check some statistics. It is still less profitable to mine than Bitcoin, which is not surprising. Bitcoin Cash has around 8% of the value of Bitcoin itself right now. The blockchain operates at 13% of the original chain’s difficulty as well. Moreover, the BCH is no longer the longest blockchain either. All of these developments are pretty interesting and somewhat surprising.
One could argue Bitcoin Cash has not achieved all that much. That would be a rather shortsighted statement, though. After all, no one expected this project to stick around for as long as it has. It still has a fair bit of support from mining pools and miners alike, which is good to see. Moreover, the BCH value has somewhat stabilized around $550 as well. Unfortunately, it is inferior to Bitcoin in all other aspects one can think of right now.
Bitcoin Cash Statistics Aren’t Looking Great
First of all, the Bitcoin Cash mining difficulty is still extremely low. The mining difficulty adjustment has always been subject to some wild speculation. Some people feel miners can effectively trick the EDA into allowing them to mine more coins accordingly. Whether or not this is effectively the case, will always remain a bit of mystery. It is certainly true the mining difficulty adjustment algorithm shakes things up a bit.
Despite this lower difficulty, Bitcoin Cash is still pretty unprofitable to mine. It has been more profitable than BTC mining on two occasions so far. For the majority of the time, however, it won’t net you any major income. Unless you believe BCH will double or triple in value, that is. Should that be the case, the people mining BCH right now will have a big payday to look forward to. It is unclear what the future holds for this altcoin in this regard.
Additionally, it appears the BCH blockchain is no longer the longest chain. Although it is only a minor title to obtain, it would give Bitcoin Cash some advantage over Bitcoin. With this factor out of reach as well, there is no reason to consider BCH is superior in any regard. It has all of the traits of an altcoin and not much is changing in this regard. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth paying attention to. However, it will not rival Bitcoin in any significant manner any time soon.
Header image courtesy of Shutterstock