What is Bitcoin Cash (BCH)?
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is a proof-of-work cryptocurrency that hard-forked from Bitcoin in 2017 to focus on cheap, everyday payments.
Bitcoin Cash split from the Bitcoin blockchain on August 1, 2017. At the time the Bitcoin community was divided between those who wanted bigger blocks for payments and those who wanted small blocks and a focus on store of value, and the big-block camp continued its own chain as Bitcoin Cash.
Bitcoin Cash launched with the stated aim of carrying forward the peer-to-peer electronic cash idea from the Bitcoin white paper, in the form of low-cost, fast payments.
Why are Bitcoin Cash fees low?
The main difference between Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin is block size. Bitcoin blocks stay at roughly 1โ4MB even after SegWit, while Bitcoin Cash uses an adaptive blocksize limit algorithm (ABLA), introduced in the May 2024 upgrade, that starts from a 32MB floor and grows with usage, per the Bitcoin Cash Node upgrade specifications.
Bitcoin Cash can fit more transactions into each block, so under normal conditions fees tend to be low and confirmation waits short. That is why Bitcoin Cash is often framed as digital cash, in contrast to Bitcoin as digital gold.
How is Bitcoin Cash different from Bitcoin?
Bitcoin Cash shares a great deal with Bitcoin because both come from the same codebase. The 21 million coin supply cap, halvings roughly every four years and SHA-256 proof-of-work mining are the same, and the most recent Bitcoin Cash halving took place in April 2024, cutting the block reward from 6.25 to 3.125 BCH according to network records.
Bitcoin Cash differs in how it scales payments. Bitcoin relies on separate layers such as the Lightning Network for small payments, whereas Bitcoin Cash chose to handle low-cost payments directly on the base layer (L1).
The Bitcoin Cash community split again in November 2018, and the chain that broke away became Bitcoin SV (BSV).
What are CashTokens?
CashTokens is a feature activated in the May 2023 Bitcoin Cash network upgrade that lets users issue fungible tokens and NFTs directly on the Bitcoin Cash chain.
Bitcoin Cash has since been able to host experiments such as stablecoins, NFTs and decentralized exchanges on its own chain. The feature adds programmable uses on top of the network's core identity as a cheap payments system.
How does Bitcoin Cash upgrade its network?
Bitcoin Cash holds a scheduled network upgrade around May 15 each year. The May 2025 upgrade activated VM Limits, which expanded execution limits for the script virtual machine, and BigInt, which enables high-precision integer arithmetic, per the Bitcoin Cash Node upgrade specifications.
Bitcoin Cash's May 2026 upgrade reportedly added bounded loops, reusable functions, bitwise operations and Pay-to-Script features, according to public materials as of May 2026. These changes aim to let more complex smart contracts run on the base layer.
Bitcoin Cash development continues to follow the principle of cheap, fast transactions directly on the base layer while widening the ecosystem of contracts and token-based applications.
What are the risks of Bitcoin Cash?
Bitcoin Cash's biggest weakness is that it trails the original Bitcoin by a wide margin in recognition. Bitcoin dominates on name, brand, market capitalization and the size of its developer and user base, and in small payments Bitcoin Cash also competes with stablecoins and the Lightning Network.
Bitcoin Cash has far less hash power than Bitcoin, which uses the same SHA-256 algorithm, so some observers raise security concerns about mining concentration and the possibility of 51% attacks.
This article on Bitcoin Cash is for information only and is not investment advice. Always make investment decisions at your own responsibility.
