Bitcoin Cash Stress Test: What Does It Prove?

Adoption is key to the success of cryptocurrencies. In fact, Vitalik Buterin, a few weeks ago mentioned that the community is actually paying unnecessary attention to Bitcoin ETF when it should be focused towards adoption. And yes, he has a point.

In order for cryptocurrencies to become popular, it has to be used for daily transactions. It needs to be viewed more than just a tool that can be used to double or quadruple your assets in a short period of time.

2.1 Million Transactions in 24 Hours

Among the things that make cryptocurrencies impractical are slow transactions and high transaction fees. On September 1, Bitcoin Cash network launched a stress test wherein the network endured 2.1 million transactions in 24 hours.

It is a community-driven test of the Bitcoin mainnet and services according to the BTC stress test site. Its goal is to process transactions while ensuring minimum transaction fees. This hopes to prove Bitcoin Cash blockchain’s overall capacity and scalability. And also, this will serve as a baseline for businesses and developers that are running their services as well as decentralized applications on the network.

The stress test was done more less than two months away from the scheduled November upgrade. And hopefully, the upgrades will be done on an annual basis.

Did The Stress Test Prove Anything?

What exactly did it prove? The number of Bitcoin Cash transactions during the stress test constitute 63% of all the crypto transactions in the past 24 hours. During this period, microtransactions within the Bitcoin Cash network soared up to 14,300 per block. There was even a time when the number of transactions reached 25,784 per block. To give you a perspective, the average number of transactions per block range from 90 to 150. In comparison, the average number of transactions per block on the Bitcoin network is at 1,000 to 1,500.

The good news is that the fee per transaction wasn’t really affected. There was a small decline from $0.002 to $0.0017.

According to software engineer Jameson Lopp, he commented in his tweet that the stress test “has succeeded in breaking various transaction and mempool visualizers”.

Could This Help Increase the Popularity of Bitcoin Cash?

How exactly does it help Bitcoin Cash? In a report in mid-August, it was discovered that Bitcoin Cash isn’t really popular in commerce. According to a study conducted by Chainanalysis, Bitcoin Cash payments even dropped from $10.5 million in March to just $3.7 million in May. And also, only 10% is used for transactions.

And also, the future doesn’t seem bright if you are going to ask Satis Group. According to the Satis Group forecast, Bitcoin Cash is about to drop as low as $268. According to Satis Group, cryptocurrencies that simply attempted to “inherit brand recognition” with “minimal technological advantage to incumbents” are expected to drop. XRP is also among the cryptocurrencies that have been predicted to drop in value in the next five years.

Because of the stress test, the price of Bitcoin Cash was able to jump in a span of 24 hours. Could  Bitcoin Cash prove Satis Group and other critics wrong?