Hash Wars: ABC Chain Leaps More Than 50 Blocks Ahead

All eyes were on the Bitcoin Cash network today as the blockchain split into two after the last common block was found on the chain at height 556766. So far both chains have been chugging along, but at the time of writing, the ABC side is well over 50 blocks ahead of the SV chain.

Also read: Hash Wars: The Bitcoin Cash Hard Fork Has Begun

A Historic Day for Bitcoin Cash

Over the last 12 hours, cryptocurrency enthusiasts from all around the world watched the highly anticipated Bitcoin Cash (BCH) network fork on Thursday, Nov. 15, with great excitement. Like many fans expected, the BCH chain split into two and miners from both camps are mining each chain at the moment. The split was cemented when SV miners processed block 556767 at 1:22 p.m. EST on an entirely different chain than the one mined by Bitcoin.com at 1:00 p.m. EST.

There’s been a lot of discussion between both sides of the fork debate, and live streams were broadcast from both camps throughout the day. As we mentioned in our previous report, Jihan Wu was quiet earlier this week but today he congratulated Bitcoin.com for mining the first block with the ABC ruleset changes. The Bitmain CEO also tweeted to his followers the following statement:

There will be no more negative gamma after this block in BCH community. Congratulations.

Craig Wright, who is usually a bit more vocal on Twitter, did not tweet his usual amount of statements during the fork. However, at block height 556781, when the SV chain briefly took the lead, Wright wrote, “In all this, no user transactions are lost — And SV is ahead.” Wright appeared on podcast channel Hashwar.live on Keyport.tv with the BCH Boys, Daniel Krawisz, and Ari from Cashpay Solutions. Another web destination where many people discussed the fork was the Coinspice live stream channel. This particular stream saw members of the community such as Bitcoin.com’s Roger Ver, Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin who briefly visited, Andreas Brekken of Shitcoin.com, and many more special guests.

———————–HASH WAR UPDATE———————–

116 blocks have been mined under the new consensus rules.Bitcoin ABC is currently 51 blocks ahead.

Bitcoin ABC has about 8.9 exahashes.Bitcoin SV has about 3.5 exahashes.#Bitcoin (BCH) pic.twitter.com/MoqK6gFixJ

— Michael Matthews (@mikerelentless) November 16, 2018

For Now, the ABC Side Has Gathered More Blocks, Work, and Hashrate

During the course of the day, there were multiple large blocks mined on both chains. On the ABC chain, Bitcoin.com and BTC.com in particular processed some blocks between 4-8MB in size. On the SV chain, Coingeek and other pools mined a few large blocks as well during the first few hours. Initially, BTC.com and Bitcoin.com pools found most of the ABC blocks, but later on Bitmain’s Antpool started mining on the ABC chain. Chinese ming pool Viabtc then followed Antpool and started chipping away at the ABC side. Similarly, Coingeek and SV Pool mined the first SV chain blocks. BMG Pool did not jump in until much later, mining only a couple of blocks in total.

Orange represents the ABC hashrate (8.9 EH/s). The SV hashrate is in red (3.5 EH/s). Nov. 16, 2018, 12:46 a.m. EST.

At the time of publication, the ABC side of the chain has more than a 50-block lead over the SV side and a lot more hashrate, according to Coin Dance statistics. Moreover, the SV side of the chain became a bit sluggish around block height 556812 through 556814.

The mining pools on the ABC side are Antpool, Bitcoin.com, BTC.com, and Viabtc. The SV side miners are BMG Pool, SV Pool, Mempool, and Coingeek. Nov. 16 12:46 a.m. EST. 

According to Coin Dance cash statistics, the summary of hourly BCH hashrates by each network shows the SV chain’s processing power started to taper off around 10:00 p.m. EST. At 12:45 a.m. EST on Nov. 16, the ABC chain shows a hashrate of around 8.9 exahash while the hashrate for the Bitcoin SV chain is only 3.5 exahash at press time. The Forkmonitor.info tool created by Bitmex also shows the ABC chain is well ahead of the SV chain by accumulated proof-of-work.

Of course, there will be more discussion going forward concerning this fork over the next few days and even longer. BCH community members will have to wait and see how infrastructure providers plan to deal with the split. Alongside this, observers will be closely monitoring both chains for future developments and keeping a close eye on the crypto-market action.

What do you think of the action that took place on the Bitcoin Cash chain on Nov. 15? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

Images via Shutterstock, Pixabay, Coin Dance, and Twitter. 

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