Bitcoiner developer Paul Sztorc launched eCash, a tough fork(laborious fork) of Bitcoin scheduled for August 2026, which can embrace the reallocation of a part of the cash attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto to buyers earlier than its launch.
And laborious fork is a cut up of Bitcoin that copies your complete community historical past at a given level and creates a brand new unbiased chain. Based on the eCash web site, on the time of forkthe brand new undertaking’s software program will learn the stability of every Bitcoin deal with and credit score an equal quantity of eCash in proportion 1 to 1 to those self same addresses inside the new community. The unique bitcoin (BTC) isn’t modified or moved.
Based on eCash paperwork, some 550,000 BTC cash related to the “Patoshi” sample (linked to the primary blocks mined by Satoshi, it’s speculated) You can be manually assigned to accredited buyers to finance the undertaking earlier than launch. This means that the preliminary distribution of the brand new asset won’t be proportional solely to bitcoin holders.
The developer’s assertion, shared on X at present, April 24, maintains that this choice goals to forestall the fork from being “born empty” in financial phrases. Sztorc acknowledged that the choice “will undoubtedly be controversial” and justified it as a substitute for what he described as a “zombie undertaking” with no avenues for prior participation.
Alternatively, Sztorc defined that the brand new undertaking node will probably be an “virtually actual clone” of the Bitcoin Core software program code and can use the identical mining algorithm (SHA-256).
The eCash web site reveals a countdown to the fork, set for August 2026 round block 964,000:
What is that this fork in search of and why is it proposed?
The promoter of the undertaking maintains that this laborious fork doesn’t reply to a technical limitation of Bitcoin, however to what it defines as a governance and tradition downside inside the group. Alongside these traces, the eCash web site factors out that “it isn’t the BTC code that’s damaged, it’s the BTC group.”
Based on Sztorc, the event of Bitcoin is stalled by conservative selections of its contributors and provides that this circumstance prevents the adoption of modifications.
In his strategy, creating a brand new community can be a method to introduce these modifications with out relying on the consensus of the present ecosystem.
Likewise, on the eCash web site it’s said that the aim is get well competitors between networks and permit technological experimentation with out altering Bitcoin straight. Underneath this premise, eCash would perform instead the place completely different second layer options would compete with one another from the start.
Sztorc reported that the laborious fork will initially activate the BIP-300 and 301 requirements (created by Sztorc himself), which goal to construct facet chains (sidechains) anchored to the primary community. His workforce is at present creating seven of those chains and all will function underneath a merged mining mannequin (merged miningin English), wherein mainnet miners additionally course of sidechain blocks and obtain further revenue with out additional {hardware}.
In that sense, the eCash workforce additionally argues that Bitcoin already has the mandatory technical instruments to scale, however the group doesn’t implement them. Subsequently, the proposal doesn’t search to switch the bottom code straight, however slightly to launch a parallel community that adopts these modifications from the start.
Lastly, Sztorc himself clarified in his publication that the time period “eCash” is generic and that it was already utilized by the Chaumian eCash system of the DigiCash firm within the 80s and 90s, by the XEC cryptocurrency (at present ranked 164 by market capitalization) and by the Cashu custodial undertaking.
He stated his workforce obtained the area eCash.com, which he’s comfy with the identify and in addition gives trial software program.
