eCash results from the Bitcoin fork, a Stand-in for Bitcoin Cash ABC (BCHA). It operates differently from its predecessor. It is a cryptocurrency created to serve as a digital cash equivalent of Fiat currency; electronic cash.

TLDR:  eCash and its promises

• eCash's sole intent of creation is to be a method of exchange for payments for goods and services.

• Since its rebranding on July 1, 2021, eCash has tried to ensure its absolute difference from its forbearers.

• Bits, the foundational units of eCash, take the role of Bitcoin Cash ABC's cumbersome decimal places. When using eCash, you would transfer 10 bits rather than 0.00001000 BTC.

• For validation, the built-in consensus mechanism adopted by eCash is the "Avalanche," which is different from the blockchain Avalanche (AVAX).

• On successfully changing its name, eCash declared that it would exchange all BCHA coins 1:1 for XEC.

WHAT IS eCash?

eCash is a payment method that allows for the purchase of goods and services online without a middleman and the need for a bank account.

It is imperative to state that eCash is not the same as Ecash.

As you might probably know, Ecash was developed by David Chaum, a scientist, in 1983. It was adopted by the Mark Twain Bank in Missouri towards the end of the 1990s for microtransactions. However, it never lasted long as it later died out, even considering its potential use case and the opportunity for consumers to experience some level of privacies that is now a bedrock of cryptocurrencies.

eCash as crypto has its root in Bitcoin. It succeeds the Bitcoin Cash ABC, a fork product of Bitcoin.

Bitcoin Cash stemmed from the Bitcoin fork caused by differing ideas and concepts in the Bitcoin community. Some developers wanted Bitcoin to stand firmly and be known as a payment method, while others wanted more from its Blockchain applications and use cases.

The group that believed Bitcoin should be used as a payment method only ended up leaving the community and created Bitcoin Cash in 2017.

The Bitcoin Cash community aims to retain the original vision Bitcoin was created for, a cheap payment system with transaction fees of less than $0.05 and improved transaction confirmation times, mostly in seconds.

The fork did not end there, as there was still a disparity in this newly formed group, and this led to a different division of Bitcoin Cash in November of 2018, which resulted in Bitcoin Cash ABC and Bitcoin Cash SV (Satoshi Vision).

The cryptocurrency of the Bitcoin Cash ABC is known as BCHA.  

In 2021, Bitcoin Cash ABC had a name change, deemed appropriate for rebranding to what we now know as eCash.  The currency of the eCash is the XEC.

Who founded eCash?

Amaury Sechet leads the eCash (XEC) development. He was also the lead developer of Bitcoin Cash  (BCH) and one of the persons that supported the splitting of Bitcoin Cash to establish the predecessor of eCash, Bitcoin Cash ABC (BCHA).

After the fork on November 15, 2020,  Sechet resolved that rebranding Bitcoin Cash ABC and renaming it was paramount in building a new brand identity for eCash. He further highlighted the need to reduce decimal places as a factor for the easy espousal of the coin. In quote,

“No other money has eight decimal places. Why should crypto? Cryptocurrencies with a lower unit price also enjoy higher bull market appreciation. Because the eCash team is incentivized by both tech and price improvement, this improvement was a no-brainer.”

Sechet, who was at Facebook as a software engineer and Stupid D compiler as one of the lead developers, developed an interest in cryptocurrencies and got involved with Bitcoin. His enthusiasm and activeness followed in line with his interest in developing Bitcoin cash which was followed by his influence in the community that led to its initial fork away from Bitcoin in August 2017. In 2018, there was a different fork from Bitcoin cash, and lastly, in 2020, Bitcoin Cash ABC was forked.

The Uniqueness of  eCash

eCash developers aimed for its coin to be compatible with Ethereum Virtual Machine and also be able to exchange data (interoperability) with the decentralized finance (DeFi) of the Ethereum Blockchain.  They developed the core missions on which the coin would be successful. They are as follows

eCash core missions

• Provide anonymity in transactions.
• Provide immutable transactions.
• To ensure almost cost-free transactions.
• Ensure that transactions take fewer than three seconds to complete while secured as globally as possible.
• Building an infrastructural design that portrays its coin as a public good powered by a consensual contract by the community.

The following are laid out plans by the community to ensure that the listed missions are accomplished.

1. A simple transaction ordering process that allows for scalability.
2. A simple signature algorithm, Schnorr Signatures, is utilized for bulk validations.
3. Use of Graphene for rapid block propagation to the nodes.
4. A UTXO commitment that allows for transparent and faster blockchain processing between miners.
5. Merklix-Meta Tree for block processing scalability
6. A sustainable block size would support up to 1TB growth in blocks.
7. The solution would facilitate 50 eCash daily transactions for a single user, up to 10 billion users.

How eCash works

Ideally, an eCash user would have to transfer their fiat currency from the financial institution they provided during their registration to their eCash wallet. This is then stored on a hard wallet until it is required for use. After that, it would be kept in the wallet until necessary.  For purchases or other transaction forms, users would send money using their digital wallet.  For receiving money as well, the same digital wallet would be used.

eCash manages the software that controls the "digital wallets." In this manner, the fund's transfer would need to be validated through the eCash ecosystem. The payment principles behind debit and credit card transactions are comparable to this.

There are no transaction fees using eCash and its digital wallet. However, charges might be incurred while transferring funds from the traditional bank to the eCash digital wallet.

eCash Price

The eCash price is $0.000037, with a -1.94% change over the past 24 hours as of the 18th of October 2022. This change in price action leaves eCash with a market cap of  $715,001,302.82. eCash for this year records a  -66.65% change in price.

There has been a 1800+% gain in price appreciation, more than 1900 code commits in the past year highlighting a solid technical advancement, a spike in followers and media attention, and eCash available across more than 30 exchanges for investing and trading.

The total supply of eCash in circulation is 19.20 trillion, with the community aiming to reach a maximum of 21.00 trillion.

According to the eCash whitepaper released, about 90% of the total eCash token in circulation has been issued, leaving a small fraction to its developers. The implication of this is there will be a limitation to further supply, which will invariably help to curtail inflation.

Final Thought

eCash is fundamentally a multiple-fork product of Bitcoin. However, it is yet to be seen if it would differ entirely from its predecessors, even though it has already started showing it could.

A significant distinction between eCash from Bitcoin is that it uses a proof-of-stake opposing the proof-of-work utilized by Bitcoin for its consensus.  This ought to, at least theoretically, make it one of the greener cryptocurrency options.

Finally, even though XEC is concentrated on being an exchange method, other cryptocurrencies, like the original BTC, might also stake a claim to this function. We'll have to wait and see which one—if any—becomes the market leader.

With Aptos, you can predict with great precision if eCash will meet all it has stated to achieve. But it's not an easy one; if you decide to invest in eCash, an automated market maker on Aptos developed by Pontem, you will est be assured that the risk is worth it.