Bitcoin Cash (BCH) Arrives On The Scene 12 months ago today, Bitcoin Cash (BCH) burst on to the cryptocurrency stage. The altcoin was brought into existence due to a hard fork away from Bitcoin Classic. For those of you unfamiliar with a hard fork, it is a permanent split or separation within a cryptocurrency, usually undertaken to speed up the transaction rate of the primary currency, in this case, Bitcoin Classic. Another huge benefit to Bitcoin Cash being established as an altcoin currency is that it dramatically lowered the transaction fees for both cryptocurrencies, which had previously been high due to lengthy transaction times. What Forces Brought About The Separation After Bitcoin Classic's hugely celebrated arrival in 2009, its user base has seen huge and steady growth for the entire decade that followed. During the last three years, however, Bitcoin Classic saw almost too much growth and the parameters that govern trading in the currency started to slow down, which in turn led to much higher processing fees being initiated by trading platforms struggling to cope with the lag. The fundamentals behind Bitcoin Classic are rock solid, however, the computer processing power needed to run the decentralized currency is huge. During peak trading conditions the transaction processing time is known to slow down, as the currency system struggles to pull out the necessary computing power to accommodate lighting fast transactions, a capability built into Bitcoin. Due to these slow-down issues, key players within the cryptocurrency industry decided to initiate a hard fork, which as expected solved a lot of the issues plaguing Bitcoin Classic. Bitcoin Cash was originally developed by BitcoinABC, Bitcoin Unlimited, and Bitcoin XT. Bitcoin Cash's Hard Fork Created Controversy While many industry leaders and cryptocurrency enthusiasts were extremely happy about Bitcoin Cash's ability to solve problems faced by Bitcoin Classic, the idea was not well received by everyone. Many cryptocurrency purists were extremely opposed to the hard fork that occurred, instead insisting that Bitcoin Classic's problems should be solved by increasing block size transaction capacity, a task that would be more difficult than a hard fork. Despite a large amount of opposition to Bitcoin Cash, the issue didn't create enough controversy and resentment within the industry to create any lasting rifts or divisions.