With the Bitcoin Cash network’s May 15 Cashtokens upgrade now three months behind us, bustling development in non-custodial wallets, marketplaces, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), games, and other applications continues unabated. Paytaca wallet CEO Joemar Taganna notes that “improvements in consensus building” and “new and powerful upgrades to the protocol” showcase several parties “working together to make the peer-to-peer cash revolution happen.”

Little Green Monsters, Gurus, Cats, and Prediction Markets

After the May 15, 2023 Bitcoin Cash upgrade, which effectively enables smart contracts onchain for BCH by utilizing unspent transaction outputs (UTXOs), much development has been ongoing on the network surrounding Cashtokens, a feature that has inspired the creation of numerous non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and marketplaces like tapswap.cash.

NFT sales and trading activity are still modest compared to other networks, with marketplaces in their nascent stages, and decentralized exchanges (dexs) in test phases. That notwithstanding, development has been occurring at an industrious pace in the background, as advocates of Cashtokens point to the power of the upgraded chain to enable even more types of permissionless peer-to-peer exchange directly onchain, for lower fees than other leading protocols. Some NFT collections of note include Emerald DAO, Bitcats Heroes Club, and BCH Gurus.

As developer Jason Dreyzehner mentioned to Bitcoin.com News back in May: “Suddenly it was possible to build very efficient, UTXO-based decentralized applications while preserving important features of Bitcoin Cash: stateless transaction validation (low fees) and zero-delay re-spending (fast transactions).”

Paytaca, creator of the Cashtokens-friendly Paytaca wallet, is now working on a tool to enable anyone to create their own NFTs via a project called Cashtokens Studio. CEO of Paytaca Joemar Taganna is also involved with the Bitcats Heroes Club NFTs. Taganna told Bitcoin.com news:

There is a need now for a tool for the general public that will allow anyone to create tokens using the Cashtokens protocol. Currently, the process is largely manual, so it is tedious and error-prone. That’s why we are building Cashtokens Studio.

One popular NFT project springing up after the May upgrade has been the BCH Gurus. This project is a multi-dimensional NFT endeavor which is currently building price prediction games fueled by NFTs and other tokens on the new protocol.

“The Cashtokens upgrade has allowed for an entirely new ecosystem to develop directly on Bitcoin Cash mainchain,” the BCH Guru Team told Bitcoin.com News via Telegram, elaborating: “The BCH Guru combines the fun and addictive element of a uniquely designed NFT collection, along with a fungible token (Furu), allowing users to play price prediction games onchain through a Cashtokens smart contract.”

Community and Tech Developments, Crypto Custody Ethos

Noting that Cashtokens’ simple token primitives “that can allow you to create most (if not all) of defi applications you see in other chains” will require some tooling developed from scratch, Taganna says his group is “happy to take on part of that huge challenge.” Speaking of Bitcoin Cash development over the last few years, the Paytaca CEO notes:

“The BCH community is becoming more vibrant and productive, a breath of fresh air from the prior years of political conflict leading to splits. We now have individuals, dev teams, and entrepreneurs, supported by well-aligned donors / investors, all working together to make the peer-to-peer cash revolution happen.”

Part and parcel of refusing to compromise on Satoshi Nakamoto’s vision for a money which can’t be censored and can be traded with no need for a financial institution — an ethos enthusiastically championed by many in Bitcoin Cash communities — is keeping complete control over one’s crypto. Non-custodial bitcoin cash wallets supporting the Cashtokens upgrade include Paytaca, Electron Cash, Cashonize, and Zapit.

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