Since its inception, bitcoin users maintained a common set of rules for the cryptocurrency. On 21 July 2017,
bitcoin miners implemented a software upgrade known as Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) 91, which activated the
Segregated Witness (SegWit) upgrade at block 477,120. SegWit was a contentious update as it enabled second-layer solutions on bitcoin, such as the
Lightning Network. In June 2017, hardware manufacturer
Bitmain described a proposed hard fork with an increased block size as a "contingency plan" in case the bitcoin community chose to implement
SegWit. The same month, the first software implementation was introduced under the name
Bitcoin ABC during a conference. In July 2017, the
mining pool ViaBTC suggested the name
Bitcoin Cash for the fork. Additionally,
Roger Ver and other expressed that adopting BIP 91 (which was intended to activate
SegWit) appeared to benefit those who viewed bitcoin primarily as a digital investment rather than as means of everyday transactions. The Bitcoin Cash fork occurred on 1 August 2017, at block 478,559. Up to the previous block (478,558), the bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash blockchains were identical. This means that anyone who owned one bitcoin at the time of the fork automatically owned one unit of Bitcoin Cash. The technical difference between Bitcoin Cash and bitcoin at the time of the fork is that Bitcoin Cash supports larger block sizes. This allows the Bitcoin Cash blockchain to process more transactions per second compared to bitcoin. Bitcoin Cash was the first of the
bitcoin forks, wherein software development teams modified bitcoin's code and released coins with "bitcoin" in their names, effectively creating "money out of thin air." In relation to
bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash is variously described as a spin-off, a product of a hard fork, an offshoot, a clone, or an
altcoin. In 2017 there were two factions of Bitcoin supporters: those that supported large blocks and those who preferred small blocks.
Gavin Andresen, a former lead Bitcoin developer endorsed Bitcoin Cash in a tweet in November 2017. In 2018, the Bitcoin Cash maximum block size was raised from 8MB to 32MB. The anonymous @Bitcoin account on X endorsed Bitcoin Cash in 2018. The account was later briefly suspended by Twitter, possibly related to a "flood" of reports claiming "spam, hate speech, or price pumping" and brigading by some users calling on others to report it as a "fake @Bitcoin account." It was later reinstated. In 2018
Bitcoin Core developer Cory Fields found a bug in the
Bitcoin ABC software that would have allowed an attacker to create a block causing a chain split. Fields notified the development team about it, and the bug was fixed. As of 2024, over 40 major businesses accept Bitcoin Cash in
Antigua and Barbuda.
Regulations United States regulators have stated that Bitcoin Cash should be supervised as a commodity and not under the jurisdiction of the
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). New York's legislature introduced a bill that would establish "that state agencies are allowed to accept cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin,
Ethereum,
Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash as payment." The bill is currently in the
assembly committee.
Gary Gensler, the former chairperson of the SEC, stated in 2018 that Bitcoin Cash does not "appear to trigger the
Howey Test." Gensler also stated in a 2018 speech "over 70% of the crypto market is bitcoin, Ether, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash. Why did I name those four? They're not securities." However, in his official capacity, neither Gensler nor the SEC have assumed these positions.
Emin Gün Sirer, a professor at
Cornell University, stated that Bitcoin Cash primarily focused on everyday use (largely through "
grassroots, organic," merchant onboarding/adoption) whereas bitcoin had an "enormous focus on price, an enormous focus on the 'store of value' narrative". == Trading and usage ==