What Is Bitcoin Cash (BCH)? The Big-Block Bitcoin Fork Coin

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is a proof-of-work cryptocurrency that split from Bitcoin in August 2017 so it could carry bigger blocks, and BCH is its coin. The two chains share every block up to the split, so each bitcoin balance at that moment existed on both. Since then they've run as separate networks with their own rules and prices.

By the early-November close, Bitcoin Cash's block rewards had released about 20.11 million BCH, close to all the supply its schedule allows. That schedule ends a fraction under 21 million. About 886,000 BCH are left to issue, and each halving slows them down. If you buy BCH, you're buying a coin whose supply is almost fully out, on the same rule Bitcoin follows.

Bitcoin Cash at a Glance

Is Bitcoin Cash the Same as Bitcoin?

No, they're two coins on two chains that share a history. Every block up to the split on 1 August 2017 belongs to both, and the chains went their own ways from that day.

The split was about block size. Bitcoin had capped blocks at 1 MB since 2010, and from 2015 they ran full more and more often, so users had to outbid each other to get a payment in. That's the history told in the proposal behind Bitcoin Cash's adaptive block limit.

Bitcoin Cash began as a hard fork, a rule change that nodes on the old rules reject. Its technical specification required the first Bitcoin Cash block to be bigger than 1 MB, so the new chain couldn't fold back into the old one. That block came in at about 1.9 MB.

The fork also changed how transactions get signed, so a Bitcoin transaction can't be replayed on the Bitcoin Cash chain. Spending your bitcoin after the split didn't also spend your BCH, and if you held your own keys that day, the same keys controlled both balances.

Both chains aim for one block every 10 minutes. Bitcoin retunes its mining difficulty, how hard a block is to find, about every two weeks. Bitcoin Cash retunes after every block.

How long a Bitcoin transfer takes depends on that rhythm and on the fee you attach. Bitcoin Cash's answer to crowded blocks is more room in each one.

How Does Bitcoin Cash Work?

Mining on Bitcoin Cash works the way it does on Bitcoin. Miners gather transactions into blocks and compete to add each one with proof-of-work, and the winner collects new BCH plus the fees in that block.

Block space is where the two coins part ways. Bitcoin Cash raised its fixed limit to 8 MB at the fork and to 32 MB in May 2018. Since the May 2024 network upgrade, the limit resets itself after every block, following a moving average of how big recent blocks have been.

The limit never drops below 32 MB. Bitcoin Cash Node, a full-node program for the chain, rejects any block over 2 GB.

Raising the limit used to take a coordinated upgrade that everyone had to agree on. The adaptive rule removes that step, and because it reads the size of the blocks miners produce, it can only rise as fast as they fill them.

Bitcoin Cash sets its difficulty with a rule called ASERT that went live in November 2020. Its specification says the old rule let difficulty swing through the day, which paid miners to hop between chains and left long gaps between blocks.

ASERT steers block times back toward 10 minutes. For every two days the chain runs behind schedule, difficulty halves, and it doubles for every two days ahead.

Does Bitcoin Cash Have Tokens and Smart Contracts?

Yes on both counts, and the tokens are the newer of the two. The May 2023 upgrade switched on CashTokens, which are created and sent on the Bitcoin Cash network itself with no separate chain.

They come in two kinds. Fungible tokens are interchangeable, so any unit is as good as another. An NFT can't be split or merged, and each one carries a short piece of data set by whoever issued it.

Upgrades in May 2025 and May 2026 widened what smart contracts, programs that hold and move coins by preset rules, can do on Bitcoin Cash.

The 2025 change reset the limits on contract code to allow more advanced contracts, and it raised the longest number that code can handle from 8 bytes to 10,000. The 2026 change added loops and reusable functions.

How Much Bitcoin Cash Is Left to Mine?

Every block pays its miner a set amount of new BCH, called the block subsidy, on top of the fees inside it. Bitcoin Cash kept Bitcoin's rule for that subsidy. It started at 50 coins a block in 2009 and halves every 210,000 blocks, roughly every four years.

Two halvings came before the split, so both chains share them. The Bitcoin Cash chain then halved on its own in April 2020 and April 2024, and the second cut left the subsidy at 3.125 BCH.

The next halving is about 73,600 blocks past the early-November close, and it drops each block's new coins to 1.5625 BCH.

That count adds up the subsidy for every block from the first one in January 2009 to the last block before the close. It's the most the rule allows. A miner can claim less than the full reward and none can claim more, so the BCH in existence can only be at or under that figure.

The 21 million you see everywhere is a different number in the code. It's a ceiling on any single amount the software will accept as valid. The reward schedule ends about 0.02 BCH short of it, because each halving rounds the subsidy down to a whole satoshi, the smallest unit of BCH.

After the 33rd halving the subsidy rounds down to zero, and miners earn fees alone. Bitcoin runs on the same arithmetic, so the count of bitcoins left to mine follows the same steps.

How to Buy BCH Safely

You can hold BCH itself or trade its price, and Phemex lists both. If you want the coin in your own hands, these steps keep it safe on the way.

1. Phemex lists BCH/USDT as a spot pair, where you buy and own the BCH you pay for. It also runs BCH/USDT futures, where you trade the price with up to 50x leverage and never hold the coin.

2. Set up a wallet that supports Bitcoin Cash and lets you hold the keys, known as a non-custodial wallet. Write its recovery phrase on paper before you fund it.

3. Withdraw only to a Bitcoin Cash address, and pick the Bitcoin Cash network on the withdrawal screen. Newer addresses begin with "bitcoincash" and a colon, a prefix wallets may leave off, while older-style ones look like Bitcoin addresses. Never send BCH to a wallet that only supports Bitcoin.

4. Send a small test amount first and confirm it arrived, then send the rest and check the address character by character.

BCH's perpetual futures price fell about 5.3% in the day to the early-November close. From February 2024 to that close, it fell that much or more on about one day in 16.

Futures use leverage, and a leveraged position is closed automatically in a liquidation if losses push its margin below a set minimum. At 50x leverage, a move of less than 2% against you can be enough to trigger it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Bitcoin Cash used for?

BCH is the money of its own network, used to send payments and to pay the fees miners collect. Since May 2023 the chain also carries tokens and NFTs through CashTokens, and its 2025 and 2026 upgrades gave contract code room for bigger programs.

Does Bitcoin Cash have a future?

Its software side looks healthy, with a network upgrade every May since 2018 and a tentative May 2027 date already set in Bitcoin Cash Node's code. The harder test is use, because a block size limit that grows with demand only pays off if the demand arrives.

Should you buy Bitcoin Cash?

That's your call, and three facts belong in it. Nearly 96% of the coins its schedule allows are already out, and the chain still ships upgrades. Its price can drop hard in a day, as it did in early November 2026, and futures leverage makes those drops bigger.

Bottom Line

Bitcoin Cash took Bitcoin's supply rule as it was and rewrote the block size rule. The supply side is nearly settled, with almost every coin the schedule allows already released and the rest coming slower after each halving.

That leaves the block side as the open question. A chain that makes room as blocks fill up has built for heavy use, and it only proves the design right if people send enough payments to need that room.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and is not financial advice. Cryptocurrency trading involves substantial risk. Always do your own research before making investment decisions.