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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. Since then, it has grown into a top-ranked currency in today's market, ranked #18 by CoinMarketCap and #21 by Crypto.com.
Bitcoin Cash is an independent blockchain created through a hard fork of the Bitcoin blockchain on August 1, 2017. The hard fork resulted from community disagreements over Bitcoin scaling and the SegWit upgrade, which led to the split into two blockchains with a common origin: Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash.
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."
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. Bitcoin Cash uses a Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism, in which miners use cryptography to solve equations to confirm and add transactions to the blockchain and receive block rewards in the form of newly-issued Bitcoin Cash tokens as well as transaction fees. Then they can sell the coins to others. Bitcoin Cash has a maximum supply of 21 million coins, just like Bitcoin, with a current total supply of about 20.1 million BCH.
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. 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.
Another difference is market size. As of press time, the total market value of Bitcoin Cash was about $5.58 billion. This is only a fraction of the $881 billion market value of Bitcoin.
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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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