Bitcoin Cash Timeline – BTC & BCH Hard Fork Event Schedule Guide?

Are you having trouble keeping track of the Bitcoin Cash Timeline? Want to know what happens and at which times? Today, we’re explaining everything you need to know about the next few hours, days, and weeks surrounding bitcoin and the hard fork.

Bitcoin Cash Timeline July 31

Right now, merchants and exchanges are freaking out about how to deal with the upcoming fork. July 31 and August 1 have been circled on the cryptocurrency industry’s calendars for months.

Over the past month, some exchanges have been listing support for Bitcoin Cash, while others have specifically said that they won’t support BCC. There’s a problem with both approaches. First, it’s difficult for exchanges to list a currency that doesn’t even officially exist yet. And second, exchanges that don’t support BCC are preventing their users from accessing their valuable Bitcoin Cash if it does exist – that could be a problem especially if BCC starts trading at a higher price than BTC.

It’s July 31 right now. If you still have your cryptocurrencies tied up in an exchange, you should withdraw them. Move them to a place where you retain hold of your private keys.

Got it? Good. Now let’s look at some of the specific times you need to know about over the next few days.

August 1 At 00:00 UTC

UTC, also known as GMT, is when most of the important bitcoin times take place. On August 1, 00:00 UTC, it’s expected that the BIP 148 UASF will launch.

This deadline is not expected to be a big deal because the bitcoin network is already enforcing BIP 91. Theoretically, this makes August 1 at 00:00 a non-event. This protocol won’t split the network, and bitcoin will move forward as a single chain.

August 1 At 12:20 UTC

Bitcoin Cash will launch at 12:20 UTC on August 1. At this point, any miners that are mining Bitcoin Cash will create a transaction block greater than 1MB in size, which will cause a fork in the bitcoin network.

The outcome of this decision depends on the amount of hash power miners will dedicate to the new coin:

If less than 16% of bitcoin’s current hash power dedicates itself to mining Bitcoin Cash, the first block is expected to take over an hour; on the bitcoin side of things, this won’t have a major impact, aside from possibly causing bitcoin blocks to take slightly longer than 10 minutes.

If between 17 and 50% of bitcoin’s current hash power starts to mine bitcoin cash, then the first BCC block will take between 20 minutes to an hour; this will have a more significant effect on the bitcoin blockchain, and blocks on the bitcoin blockchain could take as long as 20 minutes.

If more than 50% of bitcoin’s current hash power starts to mine bitcoin cash, the first block will likely take less than 20 minutes and will slow the bitcoin blockchain significantly, with blocks taking more than 20 minutes on average.

During this time period, users will begin to send Bitcoin Cash to exchanges. Users can only send their BCC to exchanges that have announced support for BCC and have promised to continue trading through the fork (many exchanges are closing down during this time period).

You can expect to see significant volatility during this event. Trading will be staggered, as users try to figure out which exchange has the best liquidity.

August 3 To 7

During this time period, miners will likely switch between bitcoin and bitcoin cash depending on the profitability and difficulty, which could mean fluctuating block times. Ideally, the market will ensure that both bitcoin and bitcoin cash have a block time of about 10 minutes.

August 8 To 14

During this time period, SegWit should lock into bitcoin. Depending on how much mining power moves over to Bitcoin Cash, and how much new mining power appears in total, the specific date at which block 479,808 appears will change.

Bitcoin Cash Timeline Conclusion

After SegWit is locked in, the code will be activated later in August, which will mean that the bitcoin network has been officially upgraded to support transactions with a larger capacity.