What Is Bitcoin Cash Plus?

Many different currencies have used the Bitcoin name in an effort to gain traction. The latest venture to do exactly that goes by the name of Bitcoin Cash Plus, and is scheduled to launch in January of 2018. Although it is very likely this is a mere joke project, it just goes to show how surreal things can be in this industry.

Bitcoin Cash Plus – Real or Fake?

That question becomes a lot harder to answer as we see more and more of these projects pop up in the cryptocurrency world. Many people assumed Bitcoin Cash was a joke at first as well until it recently surged to US$2,800 per BCH. Moreover, we have seen various new Bitcoin-themed currencies and digital tokens come to market recently, which is something that needs to be addressed sooner or later. 

On CoinMarketCap.com alone, we see many different Bitcoin clones listed. BitcoinDark, Bitcoin Plus, BitcoinZ, Bitcoin Scrypt, Bitcoin Red, and BitcoinFast are just some of those names. There are also a few Bitcoin-themed ERC20 tokens in circulation, which only makes matters even more confusing right now. If they weren’t enough, we now also have Bitcoin Cash Plus, although it is doubtful this is a real project in its current form.

While it is true the Bitcoin Cash network received a hard fork upgrade not too long ago, this particular currency has nothing to do with it whatsoever. Bitcoin Cash Plus will be provided to Bitcoin holders through an airdrop, which is scheduled to take place once network block 501,407 is discovered on the network. No one really knows how this airdrop will occur, as it is not a direct hard fork of the existing code. It is likely the approach will be similar to that of Bitcoin Gold in this regard, even though a lot of details have yet to be worked out, by the look of things.

As one would expect, Bitcoin Cash Plus purports to introduce some new features. The developers claim there will be an even bigger focus on decentralization by using the Equihash mining algorithm. This is the same algorithm used by Bitcoin Gold, which draws some interesting parallels between both airdropped currencies. Additionally, there will be on-chain scaling with a block size of 8MB, which puts it on par with Bitcoin Cash itself. Those are interesting design choices, to say the very least. How all of this will play out remains to be determined, though.

Furthermore, Bitcoin Cash Plus claims to offer an emergency difficulty adjustment algorithm. Such an EDA was removed from Bitcoin Cash through its hard fork not too long ago. There is also a new SigHash providing replay protection, which we have seen in other Bitcoin clones as well. Someone is seemingly attempting to combine the best of both worlds with a brand-new currency. It’s an interesting approach, assuming this is even a real project to begin with. That remains highly questionable at this point in time.

Assuming this project is genuine, the question becomes who will support this new cryptocurrency. That is very difficult to answer right now, as we have seen both wallets and exchanges become less keen on supporting such airdropped currencies for the time being. Even the integration of Bitcoin Cash itself has taken most service providers several weeks, if not months, to complete. Bitcoin Cash Plus is worth keeping an eye on, mainly because it may result in more free coins for Bitcoin holders. This entire situation is getting out of hand, though; that much no one can deny.