Bitcoin Cash (BCH)
A Bitcoin-derived cryptocurrency focused on low-fee, peer-to-peer electronic cash with larger on-chain blocks.
- Acronym
- BCH
- Also known as
- BCHBitcoin Cash (BCH)
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is a proof-of-work cryptocurrency created from a Bitcoin chain split on August 1, 2017. It preserved Bitcoin's UTXO model and 21 million coin supply schedule while increasing the block size limit to support more on-chain transactions.
BCH emphasizes peer-to-peer cash use cases: low transaction fees, fast propagation, practical merchant payments, and on-chain capacity. It also includes upgrades such as CashAddr addresses, Schnorr signatures, CashTokens, and scripting improvements for applications.
The BCH/BTC split reflected a disagreement over scaling strategy. Bitcoin prioritized smaller base-layer blocks with SegWit and layer-2 scaling, while Bitcoin Cash prioritized immediate base-layer capacity increases. The networks now have separate assets, communities, roadmaps, and market histories.
All terms and definitions may update as the Cryptionary improves.
