Bitcoin Cash BCH

What is Bitcoin Cash?

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is a separate cryptocurrency that came out of a hard fork from Bitcoin on August 1, 2017, at block 478,558. It is a distinct chain with its own ledger, its own mining network, and its own market. The two coins share a history up to that block and nothing after.

A lot of people land on this page confused, and it is worth being blunt about it: BCH is not a cheaper version of BTC, and holding one does not give you the other. After the fork, anyone who held Bitcoin received an equivalent BCH balance, but from August 2017 onward the chains went their own way. BCH kept the 21 million supply cap and the 10-minute block time. The thing it changed was the block size, which is what the whole 2017 dispute was about.

Bitcoin Cash price today

BCH trades against the US dollar, USDT, and BTC on most major exchanges. The live data on this page refreshes every 60 seconds and pulls from a multi-venue feed weighted by liquidity. The reference quote you see in the price card is the volume-weighted average across the deepest order books.

What actually moves BCH price on a given week:

• The BCH/BTC ratio. BCH spends most of its time tracking Bitcoin, and the ratio has trended lower for years. In 2025 it usually sits below 0.005 BTC.
• The halving cycle. The April 2024 halving cut the block reward to 3.125 BCH. The next one is due around April 2028.
• CashTokens adoption. After the May 2023 upgrade, on-chain token activity feeds back into demand for BCH for fees.
• Exchange listings and delistings. BCH has been delisted from a handful of regional platforms over the years; each event tends to push price down for a few days.
• Miner switching. Because BCH and BTC use the same SHA-256 algorithm, miners can move between chains based on profitability. Big swings change the hashrate, which changes confirmation reliability, which changes how comfortable exchanges are with deposits.

The price card above is live; the analysis below uses the level at page load.

Bitcoin Cash vs Bitcoin: why the 2017 fork happened

For years before the split, Bitcoin had a fixed 1 MB block size limit. As blocks filled up, fees rose and confirmation times dragged. One camp wanted to keep blocks small and route everyday payments through layer-2 networks like Lightning. The other camp wanted bigger blocks on the base layer so on-chain payments stayed cheap. The argument went on for nearly three years and got personal.

On August 1, 2017, the bigger-blocks camp activated a hard fork. The new chain launched with an 8 MB block size, raised to 32 MB in May 2018. That is the technical core of the split. Around it sit philosophical differences: BCH proponents see the chain as electronic cash for daily transactions, BTC proponents see Bitcoin as digital gold first and a payment rail second. Roger Ver became the public face of BCH in the early years and pushed the "real Bitcoin" framing hard, which the market has not really accepted.

Concrete differences as of 2025:

• Block size: BCH 32 MB, BTC 1 MB base (with SegWit witness data on top).
• Average fees: BCH typically a fraction of a cent per transaction; BTC ranges from a few cents to several dollars depending on demand.
• Layer-2: BTC has the Lightning Network for instant payments. BCH does not use Lightning; the argument is that bigger base-layer blocks remove the need.
• Smart contracts: BCH added native fungible and non-fungible tokens through CashTokens in 2023. BTC handles tokens through Ordinals and BRC-20, which work differently.
• Market cap: BTC sits in the trillions. BCH market cap is a small fraction of that.

BCH halving schedule and supply

BCH inherited Bitcoin’s monetary policy unchanged. Total supply is capped at 21 million. The block reward halves every 210,000 blocks, which works out to roughly four years. Same schedule, same end state, just on a separate chain.

BCH halvings to date:

1. April 2020: block reward dropped from 12.5 BCH to 6.25 BCH.
2. April 2024: 6.25 BCH to 3.125 BCH.

The next halving is expected in April 2028, taking the reward to 1.5625 BCH. Because BCH and BTC share the SHA-256 algorithm, halvings on BCH change miner economics differently than they do on BTC. When BCH rewards drop and the BCH price does not move proportionally, hashrate often migrates back to Bitcoin. That security gap is one of the most discussed risks around the chain.

CashTokens and what BCH actually does in 2025

CashTokens activated on May 15, 2023. The upgrade adds native fungible and non-fungible tokens at the protocol level, similar in spirit to ERC-20 and ERC-721 on Ethereum but without smart contracts in the EVM sense. Anyone can issue a token directly on the BCH chain without a separate layer.

What this changed in practice:

• Stablecoins, gaming items, and identity tokens can live on BCH without bridges or wrapped assets.
• Developers got a real reason to build on BCH after years of the chain being mostly a payment network.
• On-chain payment use cases continue: tipping, micro-donations, and peer-to-peer transfers in regions where remittance fees matter.
• Wallets like Electron Cash, Bitcoin.com Wallet, and BitPay added CashTokens support over 2023 and 2024.

BCH is small compared to Ethereum or Solana on token activity, and the developer ecosystem is a fraction of either. CashTokens did not flip the chain into a top-tier smart-contract platform overnight. It did give long-time holders a non-payment use case to point to, which is more than the chain had between 2018 and 2022.

How to buy Bitcoin Cash

BCH is listed on most major exchanges. The buying flow itself is straightforward; the parts worth thinking about are which platform you trust and where the coins live afterward.

1. Choose an exchange. You want one with reasonable BCH/USD or BCH/USDT liquidity and a clean security track record. Our exchange ratings compare the leading options.
2. Pass identity verification. Government ID and a selfie check are standard. Most platforms clear KYC inside 10 minutes for retail amounts.
3. Deposit funds. Bank transfers are cheapest but slow. Cards are instant with a 2-4% spread. USDC or USDT deposits settle in minutes if you already hold stablecoins.
4. Place the order. A market order fills at the current spot price. A limit order lets you set the price you are willing to pay, which matters more on BCH than on BTC because the order books are thinner.
5. Withdraw to a wallet you control. Electron Cash is the long-time community favorite; Bitcoin.com Wallet and BitPay also work. A hardware wallet (Ledger, Trezor) is the right call for any holding you plan to keep for months. Test with a small transfer before sending the full amount.

BCH has a separate address format (CashAddr, starting with "bitcoincash:") from Bitcoin’s. Sending BCH to a BTC address or vice versa is one of the more common ways to lose coins, so check the prefix every time.

Bitcoin Cash vs Bitcoin SV (BSV)

BCH itself hard-forked in November 2018 over another round of block-size and protocol disagreements. The split produced two chains: Bitcoin Cash (BCH), which kept most of the developers and most of the exchange support, and Bitcoin SV (BSV), pushed by Craig Wright and Calvin Ayre with a focus on much larger blocks and a "stay closer to the original Bitcoin" pitch.

The market never really treated BSV as the winner. Major exchanges including Binance and Kraken delisted BSV in 2019 after Wright threatened legal action against critics. BCH retained broader liquidity, more wallet support, and the developer community that built CashTokens. If you are looking at a chart and see two coins that both call themselves "the real Bitcoin," BCH is the one with more exchange access and active development. BSV exists, has its own holders, and trades at a much smaller market cap.

Risks of holding Bitcoin Cash

BCH carries a few risks you do not get to the same degree on Bitcoin itself. Hashrate is the one that matters most: because BCH and BTC use the same mining algorithm, miners can switch chains in minutes based on which one pays better. When BCH price lags, hashrate drifts back to BTC, which makes the chain cheaper to attack and slower to confirm during stress periods. This has not produced a successful 51% attack, but it has produced a few uncomfortable hashrate drops.

• Narrative loss. BCH peaked in mindshare around 2017-2018. Since the BSV split, the chain has lost ground relative to both Bitcoin and the smart-contract platforms. That is a fact reflected in price, exchange listings, and developer headcount.
• Exchange risk. BCH has been delisted from several regional exchanges over the years, often citing low volume. Each delisting reduces accessibility and adds short-term selling pressure.
• Hashrate volatility. Shared SHA-256 mining means BCH security depends on miner choices that can shift fast.
• Founder reputational risk. Roger Ver, long the public face of BCH, was indicted by the US Department of Justice in April 2024 on mail fraud and tax evasion charges. The indictment relates to Ver personally, not to the BCH protocol or network, but the headline noise affects sentiment.
• Price drawdown. Like every crypto asset, BCH has had peak-to-trough drops over 90% in past cycles. Position sizes should assume the same is possible again.

For longer-term price scenarios, see our Bitcoin Cash price forecast.

This page is information, not financial advice. Talk to someone licensed before allocating real capital.