Bitcoin Cash Price Today

The current real-time Bitcoin Cash price is $372.55 . BCH has plummeted by 4.51% in the last day and increased by 10.11% in the last seven days. It’s important to note that the current Bitcoin Cash market capitalization is $7,351,698,957. The maximum supply is 21,000,000.00 BCH tokens, with a circulating supply of 19,733,509.38. BCH is ranked #16 in terms of market cap.

The Basics of Bitcoin Cash 

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is a decentralized Peer-to-Peer (P2P) payment network created to increase the scalability and reduce the costs associated with the Bitcoin network. A 2017 hard fork of Bitcoin led to the creation of Bitcoin Cash following divergence in the community regarding improving Bitcoin scalability and its SegWit update. 

A 2017 hard fork (a process where a change is applied to a blockchain requiring a new version of the network to be created) of Bitcoin created Bitcoin Cash, which was proposed by crypto miners, including mining hardware company Bitmain and crypto advocate Roger Ver. 

Although a few notable figures were large proponents of the Bitcoin Cash hard fork, it was ultimately a community decision. The primary reason for the fork was that some people believed that increasing Bitcoin’s block size would lead to reduced fees and improved scalability, while others argued that it would lead to centralization.

This Is How Bitcoin Cash Works

While Bitcoin Cash was created through a fork of Bitcoin, it became its own network with a propriety token fueling transactions within the ecosystem. The Bitcoin Cash blockchain is unique and not connected to another network. The BCH token is used to transfer value across the network and pay for transactions. 

Unlike Ethereum and similar projects, Bitcoin Cash utilizes the Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism for transaction validation. People solve cryptographic equations to validate transactions and receive a reward in return. They can mine as individuals or join a pool to collaborate with others. Learn more about what makes a blockchain secure. 

Due to having a large, adjustable block size, Bitcoin Cash benefits from fast transaction settlement and low fees. On average, transactions are confirmed within a few seconds and cost around $0.05. 

Bitcoin Cash vs. Bitcoin

Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin share similarities, like a maximum supply of 21 million tokens and the PoW consensus mechanism. However, many differences exist between the assets, making each better suited to different activities. 

One of the most crucial differences between the two cryptocurrencies, and one of the primary reasons Bitcoin Cash launched, is the block size. With a larger block size, applications can pack more data (and therefore more transactions) into a single block. Although Bitcoin has a maximum block size of just 4 MB, Bitcoin Cash boasts a much higher limit of 32 MB. 

Although Bitcoin Cash seems in many aspects to be a technical improvement over Bitcoin, the network is used far less, and its market cap reflects this, with Bitcoin being almost 180x larger than Bitcoin Cash. As a result, BCH can be more volatile and susceptible to market conditions. 

The Utility of Bitcoin Cash 

As a result of its low fees and fast settlement times, Bitcoin Cash has utility as a transactional currency, particularly for lower-volume transactions that wouldn’t be viable using a high-fee network like Bitcoin. 

Bitcoin Cash offers smart contract support and high throughput, making it useful for people requiring a Bitcoin-like network for an application that produces many transactions. 

The Complete Price History of Bitcoin Cash

Bitcoin Cash was created from a Bitcoin hard fork and launched in July 2017 at a price of around $412. However, within a couple of weeks, the asset had surged as high as $697. As proponents of the spread word about Bitcoin Cash, demand for the scalable Bitcoin alternative grew substantially, leading BCH to set an all-time high of $3,909 by December. 

Following its over 900% price increase, BCH tumbled severely, dropping to around $400 before falling further to approximately $125 by early 2019. The asset broke out of its slump somewhat and traded at an average of about $250 until late 2020, where it built momentum alongside the bull run and had a brief resurgence, hitting $1,1454 by May.

In the months following, BCH collapsed and struggled to break above $130. However, mid-2023 saw demand for crypto payments infrastructure increase, leading BCH to hit $305 and trade around $250 until the end of the year. So far, 2024 has been fortuitous for BCH, with the asset hitting $684 in April before falling to $372.55 today.