Glossary · deep dive

Bitcoin Cash

A separate coin created by a hard fork from Bitcoin on 1 August 2017 over the block size.

Bitcoin Cash is a separate coin. It split from Bitcoin by a hard fork on 1 August 2017. Block 478,558 is the last block the two chains share.

Its supporters wanted larger blocks instead of SegWit. Bitcoin kept small blocks and added capacity in layers. Holders at the split ended up with coins on both chains.

Takeaway: Anyone can copy the code. The users who run nodes decide which rules count as Bitcoin.