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View ChartBitcoin (BTC) is still the most popular cryptocurrency, but it is not without defects. Specifically, it allows relatively low transaction volume per second, which limits its utility in payment. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) appeared in 2017 to solve this problem and provide a cheaper and faster payment method. According to CoinMarketCap data, BCH ranks 18th by market capitalization (Crypto.com lists it as 21st).
Bitcoin Cash originated as a hard fork of the Bitcoin blockchain and is an independent proof-of-work blockchain. The coin was launched through the so-called "hard fork" of the Bitcoin blockchain on August 1, 2017. Some Bitcoin blockchain participants proposed to change the rules to allow Bitcoin to handle greater transaction volume. The community split over scaling solutions: small block supporters opposed increasing the block size limit, while large block supporters advocated for a faster solution. Ultimately, the hard fork proposed by Bitmain went live on August 1, 2017, creating two blockchain paths with a common origin: Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash.
The founding team of the Bitcoin Cash project consisted of some Bitcoin developers, led by Haipo Yang, CEO of ViaBTC and one of the earliest investors in BTC. The fork also received support from some in the Bitcoin community, such as Roger Ver.
BCH operates on the bitcoin_cash and smart_bitcoin_cash networks; the contract address listed by CoinMarketCap is 0x8fF7...444aDf.
Bitcoin Cash uses a larger block size than Bitcoin – a block is a set of transactions added to the blockchain at the same time. Bitcoin limits blocks to 1 megabyte (MB), allowing only about seven transactions per second. Bitcoin Cash initially expanded the block size to 8 MB and then 32 MB, making it able to process more than 100 transactions per second.
In addition to block size and transaction speed, Bitcoin Cash works very similarly to Bitcoin. It is an open-source, decentralized digital ledger. Miners use cryptography to solve equations to confirm and add transactions to the blockchain and receive newly-issued BCH block rewards as well as transaction fees in return for their work. Then they can sell the coins to others. The maximum supply cap is 21 million BCH, with a current total supply of approximately 20.1 million BCH (CoinMarketCap / Yahoo Finance data). The current circulating supply is approximately 20.1 million BCH, about 95.7% of the maximum supply (CoinMarketCap data), with a fully diluted valuation of approximately $5.83 billion.
Bitcoin Cash can be held and transferred using wallets that support BCH, and transactions and block confirmations can be checked using the block explorer explorer.bitcoin.com.
As mentioned earlier, the key difference between Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash is the block size. Due to this adjustment, Bitcoin Cash can be traded faster and cheaper. According to the source data, the average cost of a Bitcoin transaction is $59, while the cost of Bitcoin Cash is less than a penny.
However, the disadvantage of processing everything faster is that it may not be as secure as Bitcoin. Fewer miners are required to process and confirm transactions, which may make the security of Bitcoin Cash more vulnerable.
Daniel R. Hill, President of Hill Wealth Strategy in Virginia, said: "Bitcoin Cash is better for things like a cup of coffee, while buying larger things, such as cars or houses, may require slower and safer cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin."
Another difference is market size. As of press time, the total market value of Bitcoin Cash was about $5.58 billion (CoinMarketCap / Crypto.com data). This is only a fraction of the $881 billion market value of Bitcoin.
BCH has since undergone two more hard forks: one in November 2018, which led to the creation of Bitcoin SV (BSV), and one in November 2020, which resulted in the launch of Bitcoin Cash ABC, the latter including an 8% miners' tax distributed to developers.
BCH's all-time high was $4,355.62 on December 20, 2017, and its all-time low was $75.08 on December 15, 2018 (CoinMarketCap data).
Investing in Bitcoin Cash carries risks, including price volatility, regulatory policy changes, and technical risks. The views expressed above should not be taken as facts, and readers should conduct their own research before making any decisions.
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Trade| Comparison Criteria | Bitcoin Cash (BCH) | Bitcoin (BTC) | Litecoin (LTC) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Positioning & Purpose | Global P2P electronic cash payments | Digital gold and store of value | Lightweight daily payment currency |
| Block Size & Capacity | 32MB (High on-chain scalability) | 1MB (Approx. 1.3–4MB with SegWit) | 1MB (2.5-minute block times) |
| Average Transaction Fee | Extremely low (< $0.01 USD) | High ($1.00 – $30.00+ USD) | Low ($0.01 – $0.05 USD) |
| Smart Contracts / Tokens | Supported (Native CashTokens) | Limited (Via Ordinals / Layer 2) | Supported (OmniLite protocol) |
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