VIDEO: BITCOINS ' WHAT IS BITCOIN CASH?

Over the course of seven years, Bitcoin’s value has multiplied 879,999 times. If an investor had decided to spend five dollars on about 2,000 Bitcoins back then, that stake would be worth $4.4 million today. With $1,200 spent on some 480,000 Bitcoins, the investor would be worth at least $1.1 billion today. The main advantage of Bitcoin is that it is decentralized – meaning, there’s no central bank or government which controls it. This freedom is one of the main reasons why investors have come to see the currency as something of a "safe-haven-asset" in a problematic geopolitical world. Bitcoin recently announced that it will be split into two versions; the original Bitcoin that's existed since 2008 and the new Bitcoin cash, which aims to be a more populist alternative. 

Everybody who owns Bitcoins automatically received the same amount in Bitcoin Cash, and this brand-new currency will have to fight to survive. Bitcoin Cash lies in the hands of the "miners" who run server farms to create the blocks that sustain the Bitcoin network (the video below describes the Bitcoin miners perfectly, for those who want to know more).

It is still unclear how many Bitcoin miners have moved over to Bitcoin Cash, but it seems to only be a fraction. In the time that it took the miners to create a single block of transaction data for their public ledger,  which could indicate that Bitcoin Cash doesn't yet have the horsepower to take on Bitcoin.

The "cash" bit in the name of Bitcoin's new rival is meant to emphasize how this version is for anybody to use, not just financial institutions or large companies. Right now, the main differences between Bitcoin Cash and the original Bitcoin are no SegWit and a maximum of eight-megabyte blocks instead of one.

Bitcoin cash has the third largest market cap of any alternative cryptocurrency just three days after coming onto the scene. But it's price may be inflated because of some technical issues underpinning the new coin. It will probably be many weeks, or even months before the real impact of Bitcoin Cash is felt. 

But Bitcoin is also very volatile. It peaked at roughly $3,000 in June and then crashed to $1,938 on July 16 before bouncing back to its current value. The price can fluctuate by hundreds of dollars in a given day, which can scare traditional investors.

But with Bitcoin already having experienced such a boom in recent years, is it too late to jump on the bandwagon? Jerry Norris – owner of The Fledge –  put it this way: "They say the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago," he said. "The second best time is right now."