Bitcoin Cash

BCH is a fork of Bitcoin built for cheap everyday payments, with larger blocks, proof-of-work mining and native tokens.

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) split from Bitcoin on 1 August 2017 after a long dispute over how to scale Bitcoin. Supporters wanted bigger blocks so more payments fit on the chain, rather than Bitcoin's SegWit upgrade. The two chains share history up to block 478558; the first Bitcoin Cash block, 478559, was mined by the ViaBTC pool that evening. Everyone who held bitcoin at the split received the same amount of BCH. There was no token sale and no company behind it.

BCH keeps Bitcoin's money rules: a 21 million cap, halvings every 210,000 blocks and SHA-256 proof-of-work mining. Miners receive all new coins, 3.125 BCH per block since 2024, plus fees, which are usually a fraction of a cent. About 20.1 million BCH existed on 27 September 2026. There is no treasury: in 2020 the network rejected a rule that would have sent 8% of mined coins to one development team. Several independent teams maintain node software, led by Bitcoin Cash Node, which is funded by donations.

The chain is upgraded once a year, each May, through published proposals. CashTokens (2023) added native tokens and NFTs, an adaptive block-size limit arrived in 2024, and the 2025 and 2026 upgrades expanded smart-contract scripting.

Bitcoin Cash has had a turbulent history: it split again in 2018, when Bitcoin SV left after a 'hash war', and in 2020, when the ABC chain (now eCash) left. Because it shares Bitcoin's mining algorithm but has well under 1% of its hashpower, its security depends on miners' goodwill more than Bitcoin's does. BCH ranked about 22nd by market value in September 2026, and a US trust holding BCH was seeking to become an exchange-listed ETF.