Bitcoin Cash has reached a record high over the last 6 months, let's try to find the explanation for it. The main reason is obvious: the upcoming hardfork on the 15th of May. As a result, two important but dubious upgrades will be implemented:
1) Block size will increase from 8Mb to 32Mb, which will enable BCH to provide a much faster transaction.
Several experts argue that BlockChain capacity may become a serious obstacle given the increasing scope of cryptocurrency usage. But the problem is that the number of BCH transactions has exceeded 1 Mb only a couple of times. In addition, the number has been significantly lower over the last months. In other words, the update doesn’t make much sense as the network will not use the opportunities it provides. In this respect BCH is repeating history by way of DASH, which boasts large capacity but in fact stays half empty, without using its full potential.
2) New and restored operational codes (opcodes) will be featured within the network, which will allow to create simplified smart-contracts. As well as the first one, this second update is dubious – we already have plenty of coins which allow to write not simplified but full smart contracts.
Nevertheless, both updates are splendid indicators of a “burst of activity”, which has been perceived in a very positive way by the market amid stagnation of most crypto projects.
Other important reasons:
The upcoming hardfork is not the only cause of the coin's pump. Roger Ver remains faithful to his principles and provides a whole series of news all at once. On the weekend a large mining pool Antpool started promoting Bitcoin Cash. It claims to begin burning 12% of BCH network fees received for each block for the platform. Miners believe this will help to create a shortage of the coins and increase their value.
In addition, the Bitcoin Checkout update has contributed to the asset increase. This is a popular app from BitPay (a processing service) developers which allows retailers to receive payments in Bitcoins and now it also supports Bitcoin Cash.
Two other reasons for BCH growth include listing on Coinmama and launch of Memo project. The latter is a decentralized social network on BCH BlockChain which allows users to exchange currencies and messages, without censorship. The project appears as an operating alpha version at the moment, and has plans to be launched at full capacity in the near future.
Memo is a long term and very ambitious project to create a decentralized social network sponsored by Bictoin Cash, which we will discuss later.