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What is bitcoin cash?

Bitcoin cash (BCH) is a splinter currency which branched off from the original bitcoin blockchain in a hard fork yesterday (Tuesday August 1).

The new token bitcoin cash was created by a group of miners who ‘forked’ bitcoin in a bid to increase transaction capacity. 

Since emerging on the market, the value of bitcoin cash has risen and right now it has the third highest market cap, just under bitcoin and Ethereum.

How to get bitcoin cash

Essentially, there is nothing that you have to do to get your bitcoin cash – as long as you already own some bitcoins.

Yesterday's fork created bitcoin cash so millions of bitcoin owners should now have the same amount of bitcoin cash tokens as bitcoin tokens.

As long as you still have access to your private bitcoin keys, you should be able to do what you want with your new tokens.

And thanks bitcoin's upgraded replay protocols, there should be no risk in accidentally spending bitcoin cash instead of bitcoins.

You might decide to give the currency some time to gain a foothold on the market before you decide to start trading your money.

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Also bear in mind that if you store your tokens with third-party wallets, it might be up to them whether or not they will release your bitcoin cash.

BitcoinABC, BitcoinClassic and BitcoinUnlimited are some wallets that have jumped on board with bitcoin cash.

While a number of exchanges are trading bitcoin cash, others are not accepting the new cryptocurrency at all. 

Some exchanges are also not allowing users to withdraw or deposit bitcoin cash just yet. 

Kraken Exchange tweeted: “BCH deposits + withdraws may not be available for several days. We won't enable funding until we think it's safe.

“Waiting for BCH funding? Relax, take a walk, smell the roses, enjoy the day, it's not happening anytime soon folks. ETA 8-80hrs when safe.” 

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How to buy bitcoin

If you do not own any bitcoins but want to join the cryptocurrency revolution, you can still buy into the currency with hard cash.

Buying bitcoin with physical money used to be a a complicated process but the rise of exchange points has significantly simplified the process.

Search your local areas for bitcoin ATMs or use services such as WallofCoins to help you out.

Remember that some of these service might require a valid ID and often charge interest rates. 

How much is your money worth?

Rare coins: This is what you should be looking out for in your wallet.

You can always revert to peer-to-peer trading as long as you find someone you could trust to trade your money with.

Once you have your bitcoin tokens, you can then trade them for bitcoin cash or any other cryptocurrency on the market.

An alternate scenario involves mining bitcoin with powerful, specialised computers that process codes that keep the bitcoin network running.

For most people this is an impossible feat and the machines tend to run-up high electric bills.