An announcement on December 15th by the cryptocurrency processing site, BitPay, stated that they would henceforth integrate multiple blockchains into their payment process, starting with Bitcoin derivative, Bitcoin Cash (BCH). BCH has subsequently shown a massive value escalation of almost 20%, to reach over $2,000.

Bitcoin Cash was introduced on August 1st 2017 as a solution to the scaling problems being experienced by the Bitcoin network, and is a larger blockchain created with a fork. Thus while Bitcoin's block size is limited to 1MB (and was consequently struggling), the forked Bitcoin Cash has an 8MB capacity, allowing for significantly faster payments and network confirmations, together with greatly reduced fees. While Bitcoin itself can process 250,000 daily transactions, Bitcoin Cash can reach two million.

The BitPay announcement comes on the heels of the December launch of cryptocurrency trading on futures markets, and may signal the beginning of a move towards further integration into the market for cyber currencies. BitPay intends to add other Bitcoin-inspired blockchains over time, as they foresee a definite market demand for alternative currencies around the world.

With a 300% annual growth in trading activity, Bitpay processed more than $1bn in bitcoin payments in 2017. The market cap value of the combined top ten cryptocurrencies is over $179bn.