According to Cointelegraph, August 1 marks the eighth anniversary of a pivotal event in Bitcoin's history—the activation of Segregated Witness (SegWit) in 2017. This significant software upgrade reshaped the network's future and led to a hard fork, known as "Bitcoin Independence Day." The move reduced miner influence over the protocol and resulted in the creation of Bitcoin Cash (BCH), underscoring the community's divisions over Bitcoin's scalability for global use.
The "block size wars" were a contentious debate between those advocating for a smaller Bitcoin block size and "big blockers," a coalition of miners and businesses pushing for larger blocks to accommodate more transactions. This group, led by Roger Ver, argued that Bitcoin's limited block space fell short of Satoshi Nakamoto's vision of a peer-to-peer electronic cash system. In contrast, node operators, developers, and BTC users opposed the bigger block proposals, citing increased storage requirements that could centralize the network by making node operation prohibitive for average users.
In August 2017, Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) 91 was activated, facilitating scaling through the BTC Lightning Network, which allows offchain payment channels with final settlement on the Bitcoin ledger. On August 1, 2017, the big blockers split from the Bitcoin network, leading to the creation of BCH and permanently altering Bitcoin's trajectory. Since the hard fork, BCH's price has fluctuated, reaching an all-time high of about $1,600 in May 2021 before plummeting to around $90 during the 2022 bear market. Currently, BCH trades at approximately $552, similar to its debut price eight years ago.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin's value has surged by about 4,200% over the same period. On August 1, 2017, BTC was valued at approximately $2,718 and is now trading at around $115,000, down from its all-time high of about $122,000 recorded in July. Today, Bitcoin boasts a market cap exceeding $2.2 trillion, while Bitcoin Cash's market cap is around $10.9 billion. The division between the two networks highlights the ongoing debate over Bitcoin's use as a decentralized store of value versus a medium for various purposes, including retail purchases and file storage—a conflict that continues to this day.
