Comment Re:Questions (Score 4, Interesting) 151
Based on my limited understanding, the block size is fixed at 1MB and each transaction is around 226 bytes. A block occurs every 20 minutes, so bitcoin can only have about 232 transactions per minute, and transactions are (some how) prioritized by age and fee. It is well known the miners will flood the transaction back log to increase the fees, because the miners claim the additional fees.
SegWit, which went into effect in August (?), I think was supposed to reduce the transaction size, but keep the block size the same. SegWit also allows some sort of Lightning Network, which is basically a service that will confirm transaction off of the block chain faster for a higher fee. The Bitcoin Cash people rejected this as being too proprietary and hence their fork.
The fork Bitcoin2X a.k.a. SegWit2X increased the block size to 2MB.
I am not sure what Bitcoin Cash did, but as stated they rejected SegWit, and must have increased the block size, but they are handling the increased transaction volume fine.
AFAIK, all other Bitcoin forks (Gold, Platinum) are money grabbing schemes.