Bitcoin is currently the world’s most popular and valuable cryptocurrency. It has a few derivative coins designed for specific purposes, such as Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, and Bitcoin Diamond.
Bitcoin Diamond is the lesser-known of the three, with many not even knowing that it exists. So, what exactly is Bitcoin Diamond, why was it created, and how does it differ from Bitcoin and its most popular hard fork, Bitcoin Cash? Let’s find out.
What Is Bitcoin Diamond (BCD)?
Bitcoin Diamond is a Bitcoin hard fork that occurred in November 2017. A hard fork involves a split in a blockchain, through which a new protocol is created. The original blockchain remains, but a new blockchain now exists. A hard fork blockchain will share some similarities with the original, but there are always new features and changes, as this is the whole point of a hard fork.
Two Bitcoin miners who go by the names Team Evey and Team 007 pioneered this hard fork, as they found the Bitcoin Core protocol to be lacking. Bitcoin Core is the most widely used software for connecting the Bitcoin network and is behind Bitcoin’s original blockchain protocol. The main issue Evey and 007 found with Bitcoin’s protocol was that it could not offer users fast transactions. On top of this, Bitcoin’s user privacy levels and scalability limitations were dissatisfactory to the two miners.
What Does Bitcoin Diamond Offer?
Bitcoin Diamond is a Bitcoin hard fork that occurred in November 2017. A hard fork involves a split in a blockchain, through which a new protocol is created. The original blockchain remains, but a new blockchain now exists. A hard fork blockchain will share some similarities with the original, but there are always new features and changes, as this is the whole point of a hard fork.
Two Bitcoin miners who go by the names Team Evey and Team 007 pioneered this hard fork, as they found the Bitcoin Core protocol to be lacking. Bitcoin Core is the most widely used software for connecting the Bitcoin network and is behind Bitcoin’s original blockchain protocol. The main issue Evey and 007 found with Bitcoin’s protocol was that it could not offer users fast transactions. On top of this, Bitcoin’s user privacy levels and scalability limitations were dissatisfactory to the two miners.
What Does Bitcoin Diamond Offer?
Bitcoin Diamond is certainly more similar to Bitcoin Cash than it is to Bitcoin itself, as they both offer faster transactions, lower fees, and increased scalability (also made possible through an increase in block size). What’s more, Bitcoin Cash’s launch came just months before that of Bitcoin Diamond, in August 2017. And, as you may have guessed, both coins use the proof of work mechanism, as they’re both hard forks of Bitcoin.
Bitcoin Diamond and Bitcoin Cash seem so similar, so what exactly differentiates them?
Firstly, Bitcoin Cash is much more popular than Bitcoin Diamond. Bitcoin Cash stands as the most widely used Bitcoin hard fork, and its value is the highest among all BTC hard forks, too, which currently sits at around $330. Compared to Bitcoin Diamond’s value of around half a dollar, it’s safe to say these two coins differ drastically in value.
Additionally, Bitcoin Cash is even more scalable than Bitcoin Diamond, with a block size of up to 32MB, four times that of Bitcoin Diamond’s maximum block size.
Bitcoin Cash, like Bitcoin Diamond, is also easier to mine and is more of an open field for novices and newcomers than the highly competitive field of Bitcoin mining. However, Bitcoin Cash can only be successfully mined using an ASIC rig, whereas Bitcoin Diamond miners have the option of using a GPU, which is generally cheaper to buy.
At the moment, Bitcoin Diamond doesn’t seem to be doing so well, with an ever-decreasing coin value and trading volume. So, if anything, Bitcoin Cash seems to be the more widely successful coin, which seems to have caught on a lot more in the market. But this doesn’t mean Bitcoin Diamond has no future in the industry. As is the case with most cryptos, there’s no knowing where it will end up.
Bitcoin Cash May Have Overshadowed Bitcoin Diamond
Though Bitcoin Diamond certainly offers some useful features, the popularity and success achieved by Bitcoin Cash may have somewhat left it in the shadows. But if there’s one thing we know for sure about the crypto industry, it’s that it is unpredictable, so there’s still a chance that Bitcoin Diamond may bounce back and gain more of a solid footing in the market in the future.