The Bitcoin Cash network has officially upgraded its blockchain protocol yesterday by extending the current block size fourfold from 8MB to 32MB. The consensus change adds back the great knowledge of understanding Satoshi’s OP_Codes – which could add the ability to code colored coins and binary contracts, Bitcoin News reported.
The biggest change to the Bitcoin Cash consensus rules is the upgrading of the blocksize to a historic 32MB.
Another notable Bitcoin Cash network change is the blockchain’s default data-carrier-size being raised from 80-bytes to 220-bytes. This enables a robust OP_Return feature which is a relatively inexpensive way to embed data into the BCH chain, according to Bitcoin News.
Essentially the OP_Return script code that is used to mark transactions as invalid meant to record a set of data and not just financial transactions. However, back in 2014, BTC developers believed “storing arbitrary data in the blockchain is a bad idea” and recommended users store “non-currency data elsewhere.” OP_Return has been in the Bitcoin codebase since it was launched, and in February 2014 the 80-byte OP_Return was reduced to 40-bytes, but it was later increased and merged back to 80 bytes in 2015. Basically, the developers at the time considered this type of blockchain usage as ‘spam’ that would end up bloating the network.
However, even as developers warned that the use of OP_Return was a ‘bad idea,’ individuals and organizations continued to use it to embed arbitrary data. Two organizations, specifically Omni layer, and Counterparty, showed that using OP_Return for arbitrary data could be innovative towards building meta-protocols over a secure blockchain — although when blocks are full and the network is congested these types of layer systems find the blockchain’s network fees unsustainable. The BCH chain upgrading to 32MB and increasing the default data-carrier-size to 220 bytes will allow all kinds of innovations, like added creativity in applications such as Memo, Counterparty Cash, Blockpress, and many other platforms.
The re-enabling of disabled Satoshi OP_Codes are codes that perform specific operations using an internal stack language called Script. Many people consider Script to be extremely similar to the programming language Forth — another stack-based language and software environment. In the original Satoshi Nakamoto Bitcoin client, the creator added OP_Codes to the software which can perform operations like simple math and string handling processes. Most of the original OP_Codes were disabled in earlier clients and many people believe this language could bring new functionalities to the Bitcoin Cash network.
The OP_Codes implemented on the BCH network will improve our understanding of these codes Satoshi originally added. If all goes well with gaining knowledge from these codes, then developers can enhance binary operations and contracts using the OP_Datasigverify code, and possibly OP_Group in the future. Further, BCH proponents believe a good portion of these OP_Codes will bring forth many innovative features such as multi-signature operations, colored coins or representative tokens, smart contract compilers, and 0-confirmation sending techniques.
Article was written by Jamie Redman for news.Bitcoin.com
Bitcoin is currently trading at [FIAT: $8,316.44] according to Coin Market Cap at the time of this report.