About Bitcoin Cash (BCH/USD)
Bitcoin Cash was created on 1 August 2017 when a group of developers, miners and businesses split from the Bitcoin network over an unresolved disagreement about how the protocol should scale. Bitcoin’s one-megabyte block size limit had begun to bind, producing congestion and rising fees during busy periods. One camp favoured keeping blocks small and moving volume to second-layer networks; the other favoured raising the limit so that more transactions could settle directly on the chain. When no compromise held, the second camp forked the chain.
Everyone holding Bitcoin at the moment of the split held an equal balance of Bitcoin Cash, and the new chain kept Bitcoin’s SHA-256 proof-of-work and its 21 million coin supply cap. What changed was the block size, raised immediately and increased further afterwards, which is the whole substance of the disagreement: Bitcoin Cash is an argument that cheap on-chain settlement matters more than minimising the cost of running a full node.
In November 2018 Bitcoin Cash itself split again, producing Bitcoin SV after a further dispute over protocol direction. These are separate assets with separate networks and separate prices.
What Moves Bitcoin Cash?
Bitcoin’s direction
Bitcoin Cash shares Bitcoin’s supply schedule, its mining algorithm and much of its holder base, and broad crypto moves tend to carry it along. The correlations shown on this page are measured from our own daily closes rather than assumed.
Shared mining with Bitcoin
Because both chains use SHA-256, the same hardware can mine either. Miners move to whichever is more profitable at a given moment, which links the two networks’ economics directly and can affect block times on the smaller chain.
On-chain usage and fees
The case for Bitcoin Cash rests on low-cost direct settlement. Sustained transaction demand supports that case; a quiet chain weakens it, particularly as stablecoins on other networks have absorbed much of the payment volume that early forks were designed to serve.
Exchange and custody support
As one of the larger forks, listing and custody decisions by major venues affect how easily the asset can be held and traded.
Trading Bitcoin Cash (BCH/USD)
Bitcoin Cash trades continuously, and the price on this page comes from our own market feed. The chart, the 52-week range and the performance figures are measured from our own daily closes, and anything we cannot measure from that history is not shown. Nothing here is a recommendation or a forecast β our methodology sets out how each figure is produced.