Bitcoin Cash (BCH)

BCH shares much of Bitcoin’s early codebase and monetary design, including proof-of-work mining and a capped supply of 21 million coins. Its key distinction is a focus on greater on-chain transaction capacity. At launch, Bitcoin Cash increased the block size limit from Bitcoin’s original 1 MB to 8 MB, allowing more transactions to fit into each block. The network has since continued to evolve through protocol upgrades aimed at improving usability, scalability, and payment reliability.

Supporters describe Bitcoin Cash as digital cash for routine spending, remittances, merchant payments, and low-fee transfers. The larger block approach is intended to reduce congestion and keep transaction costs low even when demand rises. Critics argue that larger blocks can increase infrastructure requirements for node operators, making the long-running scaling debate central to BCH’s identity.

The Bitcoin Cash ecosystem includes wallets, payment processors, exchanges, mining pools, and merchant tools. In November 2018, a dispute over the protocol roadmap led to another chain split, creating Bitcoin SV while the Bitcoin Cash network continued separately. Today, BCH remains one of the most established Bitcoin-derived cryptocurrencies and is traded globally as an independent asset with its own community, development priorities, and market cycle.