Bitcoin Cash

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is the product of a 2017 hard fork of Bitcoin, created by raising the block-size limit so the chain could process many more transactions and function as low-fee electronic cash rather than a scarce settlement layer.

The scaling dispute behind the 2017 fork

The split grew out of a years-long dispute inside Bitcoin over how to scale. One camp favored keeping blocks small and moving growth off-chain to layers like Lightning while adopting Segregated Witness; the other argued that Bitcoin's purpose as everyday money required simply making blocks bigger. On 1 August 2017 the big-block camp forked away, launching BCH with an 8MB limit against Bitcoin's 1MB and rejecting SegWit.

Bigger blocks, Bitcoin's monetary policy

The economic model is deliberately conservative: BCH keeps proof-of-work mining, the 21-million supply cap, and the halving schedule inherited from Bitcoin. Its intended point of difference is not monetary policy but throughput — larger blocks mean more transactions per block, which in normal conditions translates to faster confirmations and negligible fees, the properties its proponents consider essential to money you actually spend.

The central block-size trade-off

That same design produces its central trade-off. Bigger blocks demand more storage and bandwidth from full nodes, which critics argue gradually pushes node operation toward better-resourced participants and weakens the broad decentralization that gives Bitcoin its censorship resistance. Big-block supporters counter that on-chain capacity is precisely what makes a payment network usable, and that fees pricing out ordinary users defeat the point.

BCH's awkward competitive position

Competitively, BCH sits in an awkward middle. It is measured against Bitcoin, whose brand, security budget, and network effect it cannot match and where the market has largely coalesced around a store-of-value narrative. As a payments rail it faces low-fee stablecoins and faster chains that offer cheaper, dollar-denominated transfers — arguably a better fit for spending than a volatile coin. BCH has itself forked again, spawning further splinters that fragmented its community and mindshare.

Bull case, bear case, and risks

The constructive argument is that BCH preserves a coherent and original vision — peer-to-peer cash with on-chain scale — and retains liquidity, exchange listings, and a committed base. The negative argument is that it lost the branding war decisively, that its security budget and hashrate are a fraction of Bitcoin's, and that its core use case is being eaten from both directions by store-of-value Bitcoin above and stablecoins below.

Its risks are those of a smaller proof-of-work chain. A lower hashrate makes 51% attacks meaningfully more plausible than on Bitcoin; contentious governance has already fractured the project more than once; and the payments thesis lives or dies on whether people choose a volatile coin over stable, cheaper alternatives for actual transactions.

Who holds BCH

BCH tends to be held by those who still back the original electronic-cash interpretation of Bitcoin, and by traders working its relationship to BTC. It is best framed as a philosophical and payments-oriented bet distinct from Bitcoin's dominant store-of-value case — a distinction to weigh honestly rather than assume they are interchangeable. None of this is advice.

1. 1. Choose an exchange. Pick a reputable exchange that lists BCH — among the venues we rate highest are Binance, OKX and Kraken.
2. 2. Create & verify your account. Register, enable two-factor authentication, and complete identity verification (KYC).
3. 3. Deposit funds. Add money by bank transfer, card, or a stablecoin, depending on what the exchange supports in your region.
4. 4. Buy BCH. Search for BCH, choose a market or limit order, enter your amount, and confirm.
5. 5. Secure your coins. For long-term holdings, withdraw BCH to a self-custody wallet you control rather than leaving it on the exchange.

Compare venues in our independent exchange ratings. This is not financial advice.