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View ChartBitcoin (BTC) is still the most popular cryptocurrency, but it is not without its flaws. Specifically, it supports a relatively low transaction volume per second, which limits its usefulness in payments. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) emerged in 2017 to address this issue and offer a cheaper and faster payment method. As of October 2026, Bitcoin Cash ranks around #18–#21 by market capitalisation (CoinMarketCap / Crypto.com).
Bitcoin Cash is a cryptocurrency created by a hard fork of the Bitcoin blockchain; the two now run as separate blockchains sharing a common history before August 2017. The coin was launched through a so-called "hard fork" of the Bitcoin blockchain on August 1, 2017. Some participants in the Bitcoin blockchain proposed changing the rules to allow Bitcoin to handle a greater transaction volume. This was a hard fork resulting from community disagreement over Bitcoin scaling and the SegWit upgrade, which created two blockchain paths with a common origin: Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash.
Bitcoin Cash has since undergone two further hard forks: November 2018, which created Bitcoin SV (BSV), and November 2020, which launched Bitcoin Cash ABC with an 8% miners' tax distributed to developers.
Bitcoin Cash operates on the bitcoin_cash and smart_bitcoin_cash networks; the contract address listed on 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, enabling it to process more than 100 transactions per second.
Apart from block size and transaction speed, Bitcoin Cash works very similarly to Bitcoin. It is an open-source, decentralized digital ledger. Bitcoin Cash uses a Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism; miners are rewarded with block rewards and transaction fees. They can then sell the coins to others. Bitcoin Cash has a maximum supply of 21 million BCH, with about 20.1 million BCH already in circulation (per CoinMarketCap/Yahoo Finance). About 20.1 million BCH is already in circulation (roughly 95.7% of the 21 million cap), with a fully diluted valuation of about $5.83B (CoinMarketCap).
To get started with Bitcoin Cash, you can store BCH in wallets listed on CoinMarketCap's Wallets section, and you can verify transactions and addresses 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 transferred and settled faster and cheaper on-chain. Bitcoin's average transaction fee has at times exceeded $50, versus under a cent on Bitcoin Cash.
However, the downside of processing everything faster is that it may not be as secure as Bitcoin. Fewer miners are required to process and confirm transactions, which could 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 items, such as cars or houses, may require slower and safer cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin."
Another difference is market size. As of 9 October 2026, the market cap of Bitcoin Cash was about $5.58B (CoinMarketCap / Crypto.com; $5.587B per Yahoo Finance). This is only a fraction of the $881 billion market value of Bitcoin.
BCH hit an all-time high of $4,355.62 on 20 December 2017 and an all-time low of $75.08 on 15 December 2018 (CoinMarketCap).
Investing in Bitcoin Cash carries risks including price volatility, regulatory policy changes, and technical risks. The above information should not be taken as investment advice.
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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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