Bitcoin Cash: Eight Years After the Fork
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) was born in August 2017 as a result of a hard fork from the main Bitcoin network. The split occurred due to disagreements over how to scale the network, with some arguing for increasing block size and others advocating for secondary layers like the Lightning Network.
The technical reasons behind the fork were centered around the original 1 MB per block limit causing slow confirmations and rising fees. BCH's creators aimed to increase block size to 8 MB (later expanded to 32 MB) to allow for faster and cheaper transactions on the base layer.
Since its separation, BCH has undergone a process of continuous technical refinement to increase its processing capacity, introduce programmable logic, and defend its community governance model. The network has implemented adaptive blocksize limits, allowing it to adjust its capacity according to real traffic demand.
BCH's focus on scalability and usability has led to the development of smart contracts using CashScript, a high-level language that compiles into BCH's native Script. This allows for basic DeFi applications directly on the first layer, maintaining minimum fee costs and total predictability in execution.