Bitcoin Cash (BCH), symbol BCH, is a cryptocurrency created as a fork of Bitcoin in 2017, designed to improve scalability and make transactions quicker and cheaper. As of March 27, 2025, its market cap sits around $6.67 billion, putting it at number 25 on CoinMarketCap—meaning it’s still relevant but not among the largest crypto projects. BCH is built on its own blockchain (Layer 1), using a Proof of Work (PoW) system with SHA-256 mining—the same as Bitcoin. Its main goal is to serve as digital cash for everyday transactions, with lower fees and faster confirmations compared to Bitcoin, which is now mostly seen as a store of value. Competitors include Litecoin, Dash, Monero, and Bitcoin itself. BCH’s key strengths are its larger block size (32 MB), allowing for more transactions per block, and lower transaction fees. On the downside, it has lower adoption than Bitcoin, faces risks of centralization (due to higher hardware demands for bigger blocks), and has a lower hash rate, making it potentially less secure. It tries to handle blockchain’s trilemma by increasing block size to scale, though at the cost of decentralization and some security. BCH sees usage mostly from retail users and small businesses, with some developer interest, though the community is somewhat fragmented, resulting in past conflicts and forks. Its tokenomics mirror Bitcoin, with a maximum supply of 21 million BCH, no pre-mines, and halvings occurring roughly every four years, leading to built-in scarcity. Future risks include possible regulatory issues targeting PoW cryptocurrencies, security concerns due to its smaller network size, and challenges staying visible next to giants like BTC and ETH. Upcoming updates like CashTokens could add smart contract features, but so far, there are no groundbreaking developments likely to dramatically change its market position.
