What Is Bitcoin Cash? The Fork, Block Size and What CME Futures Change

Updated on October 22, 2026: completely rewritten with current figures on block size, fees, hash rate and usage, plus the CME futures and Grayscale's ETF filing. The 2019 version gave the block size limit as 8 MB in one place and 32 MB in another; it has been 32 MB since May 2018 and has adjusted automatically since May 2024.

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is a separate cryptocurrency that split off from Bitcoin on August 1, 2017 in what is known as a hard fork. Part of the Bitcoin community wanted bigger blocks so that more payments could pass through the network at low fees. Bitcoin Cash uses the same SHA-256 mining algorithm, the same maximum supply of 21 million coins and the same ten-minute block time as Bitcoin, but allows blocks of at least 32 megabytes. In the 24 hours to October 22, 2026, the median transaction fee was $0.0007. At the same time one BCH cost $287.30, ranking 18th by market capitalisation according to CoinMarketCap.

What the record shows: since October 19, 2026, CME Group in Chicago has listed Bitcoin Cash futures, and Grayscale wants to turn its Bitcoin Cash Trust into an exchange-traded fund. It is just as well documented that the network uses only a fraction of its capacity and has less than one percent of Bitcoin's hash rate. Our assessment of whether Bitcoin Cash has a future follows further down, based on these figures. Price scenarios are collected in our Bitcoin Cash price prediction.

Bitcoin Cash: the key facts at a glance

• Origin: Bitcoin Cash split from Bitcoin on August 1, 2017 at block 478,559; anyone holding Bitcoin at the time received the same amount of BCH.
• Block size: The limit has been 32 megabytes since May 2018 and has adjusted automatically to demand since May 15, 2024; from September 21 to October 20, 2026, blocks averaged just 64 kilobytes.
• Supply: Of a maximum of 21 million BCH, 20.11 million are in circulation (October 22, 2026); since the halving on April 3, 2024, each block pays 3.125 BCH.
• Fees: The median fee over 24 hours was $0.0007, against $0.016 on Bitcoin (October 22, 2026).
• Hash rate: At 4.26 exahashes per second, Bitcoin Cash accounts for about 0.4 percent of the combined computing power of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV.
• New access: Since October 19, 2026, CME has offered futures on 250 and 25 BCH; Grayscale's ETF filing of September 11, 2026 depends on new listing rules at NYSE Arca.

What is Bitcoin Cash? The fork of August 1, 2017

Bitcoin Cash grew out of a dispute that divided the Bitcoin community from 2015 onwards: how should the network handle more payments? Bitcoin blocks were capped at 1 megabyte, and in 2017 transactions at times piled up while fees rose sharply. One side wanted to shrink the data per transaction with the SegWit upgrade and move small payments to a second layer such as the Lightning Network. The other side, including several large mining companies, simply wanted bigger blocks.

With no agreement in sight, the second group enforced its rules as a separate blockchain. At 18:12 UTC on August 1, 2017, block 478,559 was mined, at 1.9 megabytes the first block above the old limit. Bitcoin Cash started out with a limit of 8 megabytes. Anyone who owned Bitcoin now also held the same amount of Bitcoin Cash. Bitcoin activated SegWit a little over three weeks later, on August 24, 2017. What happens to your coins in a split like this is explained in our guide to the Bitcoin fork.

Bitcoin Cash explained: block size, block time and halving

Block size is the core of Bitcoin Cash. The upgrade of May 15, 2018 raised the limit to 32 megabytes. Since May 15, 2024, an algorithm called ABLA (Adaptive Blocksize Limit Algorithm) has set the limit: 32 megabytes remain the floor, and under sustained high load the limit may grow, according to the specification by at most 200 percent a year. Because blocks are almost empty at present, the limit sits at its minimum.

As on Bitcoin, the target block time is ten minutes. Since November 2020, the ASERT algorithm has adjusted the difficulty after every block, whereas Bitcoin does so only every 2,016 blocks. When hash rate swings, individual days still diverge: in the 30 days to October 20, 2026, the network averaged 145.7 blocks a day instead of 144, but on October 7 and 14 only 121, as our analysis of Bitcoin Cash block times shows.

The money supply follows Bitcoin's schedule as well. Every 210,000 blocks the miners' reward is halved. The last halving took place on April 3, 2024 at block 840,000, a little over two weeks before Bitcoin's on April 20, 2024; since then each block has paid 3.125 BCH. The next one comes at block 1,050,000, at today's pace in spring 2028. Bitcoin Cash is about 1,400 blocks ahead of Bitcoin because an emergency difficulty rule let the network find blocks very quickly at times in the first months after the split. As a result, slightly more coins are in circulation, 20.11 million BCH against 20.10 million bitcoin.

Bitcoin Cash vs. Bitcoin: the difference in numbers

The table compares both networks with figures from October 22, 2026. Prices, market value and supply come from CoinMarketCap, network data for the preceding 24 hours from the explorer Blockchair. The 30-day average block size comes from Blockchair for Bitcoin Cash and from mempool.space for Bitcoin.

Two numbers stand out. A Bitcoin Cash block has room for twenty times an average Bitcoin block, yet on average only 0.2 percent of the limit is used: 64 kilobytes out of 32 megabytes. Bitcoin largely fills its blocks and processes about 38 times as many transactions a day; at the time of measurement, 57,827 transactions were waiting for space there, against 144 on Bitcoin Cash. Bitcoin Cash fees are low because nobody competes for block space, not because the network is heavily used.

Bitcoin Cash price: from the 2017 record high to today

Shortly after the split, Bitcoin Cash was one of the five most valuable cryptocurrencies. According to CoinMarketCap, BCH reached its all-time high of $4,355.62 on December 20, 2017. The pattern of the following years: a steep peak at the end of 2017, a long trough and a second, much smaller spike in spring 2021.

BCH hit its low of $75.08 on December 15, 2018, one month after Bitcoin SV split off. On October 22, 2026, the price of $287.30 was 93.4 percent below the record. The past twelve months show how volatile BCH is: a high of $668.06 on January 5, 2026 and a low of $181.24 on June 24, 2026. Over the twelve months BCH lost 40.9 percent, Bitcoin 22.8 percent.

Bitcoin Cash moves closely with the wider market but usually falls harder. Between December 2021 and March 2022, for example, BCH dropped from around $440 to below $300 at times as the market weakened, before recovering to $377.50 by March 30, 2022. How BCH reacted to the latest slump in October 2026 is shown in our analysis of the Bitcoin Cash slide compared with Bitcoin.

Bitcoin SV and eCash: the splits from Bitcoin Cash

Bitcoin Cash itself did not stay in one piece. At the upgrade of November 15, 2018, the network broke into two camps: one group wanted to keep developing the protocol, the other, led by the company nChain, wanted 128-megabyte blocks and a return to the original Bitcoin protocol. After a contest over hash rate known as the hash war, Bitcoin SV (Satoshi Vision) emerged as a separate blockchain. On November 15, 2020 came the next split: the Bitcoin ABC development team wanted to divert part of the block reward to fund itself and continued its branch as eCash (XEC). In both cases the name and the BCH ticker stayed with the branch that had the majority of the hash rate.

Market values show how investors decided: at $5.78 billion, Bitcoin Cash is worth around 16 times as much as Bitcoin SV at $0.37 billion and more than 40 times as much as eCash (prices and ranks: CoinMarketCap).

What is Bitcoin Cash used for today?

Bitcoin Cash sees itself as digital cash for everyday use: small payments directly on the blockchain, without a second layer and for fractions of a cent. With the payment provider BitPay, you can pay with BCH just as with Bitcoin, Ether, Litecoin and Dogecoin. In the 30 days to October 20, 2026, the network processed an average of 14,291 transactions a day, between 9,571 and 34,555 on individual days. Bitcoin handled 733,710 in the 24 hours to October 22 alone.

Technically, the network has changed a lot since 2022. Since 2023, Bitcoin Cash has received an upgrade every year on May 15. In 2023, CashTokens brought native tokens and NFTs to the blockchain, 2025 added higher limits for smart contracts and arithmetic with very large numbers, and since the upgrade of May 15, 2026 the scripting language supports loops and functions. That makes it possible to build applications such as exchanges or escrow contracts directly on the Bitcoin Cash blockchain, something Bitcoin does not offer in this form.

CME futures and the ETF filing: Bitcoin Cash in autumn 2026

Since October 19, 2026, professional investors have been able to trade Bitcoin Cash on the CME derivatives exchange in Chicago. CME Group announced the launch on September 22, 2026 in a press release, together with Uniswap futures. There are two contract sizes. This is what one contract was worth at the price of October 22, 2026:

Futures let traders bet on price moves and hedge holdings without owning BCH; for private investors they are rarely the right tool, if only because of the contract sizes. Their significance lies in access: banks, funds and market makers can now hedge Bitcoin Cash price risk on a regulated US market.

Grayscale is planning the next step. The Grayscale Bitcoin Cash Trust (ticker BCHG) has so far traded only over the counter. In its Form S-3/A registration filed with the SEC on September 11, 2026, the sponsor says it intends to rename the trust Grayscale Bitcoin Cash Trust ETF once it lists on NYSE Arca. According to the document, this depends on generic listing standards at NYSE Arca that the SEC had not yet adopted at the time. On September 9, 2026, the shares traded at a 5 percent discount to the value of the BCH they hold. The catch for European investors is covered in our analysis of the Grayscale ETF filing: private investors in the EU generally cannot buy such a US ETF as long as there is no key information document under the PRIIPs regulation.

Bitcoin Cash risks: hash rate, usage, liquidity

The biggest structural risk is the low hash rate. Bitcoin Cash shares the SHA-256 mining algorithm with Bitcoin, so the same machines can work on both networks, and Bitcoin has about 256 times as much computing power. Even a small share of Bitcoin's miners could take over the majority on Bitcoin Cash and reverse blocks, a so-called 51 percent attack. Miners also switch between the networks depending on profitability, which is why the number of blocks per day fluctuates more than on Bitcoin.

The second risk is usage. With around 14,000 transactions a day and blocks that are on average 0.2 percent full, Bitcoin Cash has not reached its goal of a global payment network after nine years. Then there are price risk and liquidity: a gap of 93 percent to the record high and a range of $181 to $668 within one year show that long losing streaks, up to a total loss, are possible. With $184.7 million in 24-hour trading volume according to CoinMarketCap, large orders move the BCH price more than they would Bitcoin's, which trades $30.5 billion.

Does Bitcoin Cash still have a future?

Our view up front: Bitcoin Cash has a future as a small, technically active payment network that now also reaches financial investors. Whether it becomes more than that depends on usage, not on a new financial product.

In its favour: the network has been running for nine years, receives an upgrade every year and offers median fees below a tenth of a cent. With CME futures since October 19, 2026 and Grayscale's ETF filing, BCH is gaining an entry point for institutional investors that most altcoins lack. Against it: usage is low, its hash rate is around 0.4 percent of the SHA-256 total, and its market-cap rank has fallen from the top 5 at the end of 2017 to 18th.

Autumn 2026 improves access to Bitcoin Cash, not its use. BCH will only become a means of payment if the roughly 14,000 transactions a day rise significantly. That number is a better yardstick for the future of Bitcoin Cash than the price.

Bitcoin Cash in the EU: buying through MiCA-licensed exchanges

If you want to buy Bitcoin Cash in the EU, the obvious route is an exchange licensed under the European MiCA regulation. Providers with this licence are compared in our overview of regulated crypto exchanges; fees and selection across all providers are set out in our crypto exchange comparison. If you hold BCH yourself, check the address: since 2018 Bitcoin Cash has used its own address format called CashAddr, recognisable by the prefix "bitcoincash:". Coins cannot be sent back and forth between Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash. Devices that support BCH are listed in our hardware wallet comparison.

On tax in Germany: under Section 23 of the Income Tax Act, gains from selling BCH held privately are tax-free after a holding period of more than one year; before that, only as long as all private sale gains in a year stay below the exemption limit of 1,000 euros. A draft bill from the finance ministry dated September 30, 2026 would scrap the one-year period for newly bought coins; we track its progress in our article on the crypto holding period. The CryptoTicker tax calculator works out your gains; it does not replace advice from a tax professional for your own situation.

(As of October 22, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)