Bitcoin Cash (BCH) Rekenmachine

Born in the heat of an August 2017 schism, Bitcoin Cash stepped from Bitcoin’s spine with a single, resonant premise: scale on-chain so everyday payments feel instant and inexpensive, the ledger humming like a street alive with small change and quick hands; to that end it expanded block capacity from 1 MB to 8 MB and then 32 MB, letting far more transactions fit per block and reducing congestion, while rejecting Segregated Witness to keep full transaction data intact within each block. It retains Bitcoin’s SHA-256 Proof-of-Work and a ten-minute target block time, yet diverges in calibration: after an early emergency difficulty rule, the network adopted a refined Difficulty Adjustment Algorithm-most recently ASERT in 2020-that retunes difficulty smoothly from block to block to maintain steady issuance even as hash power swings. Compatibility with existing Bitcoin mining hardware remains, but transaction policy and script differ: Bitcoin Cash does not implement Replace-by-Fee, curbing fee-bumped replacements of unconfirmed payments and encouraging rapid merchant acceptance; it supports enhanced scripting and high-level smart contracts via Cashscript, and over successive upgrades has added tools such as Schnorr signatures for smaller, aggregateable proofs and faster batch verification, plus opcodes like OP_CHECKDATASIG and OP_CHECKSIGADD to widen contract design space. Initially, tokenization relied on the Simple Ledger Protocol layered over standard transactions; in 2023, the CashTokens upgrade brought native fungible and non-fungible tokens and covenant-powered smart contracts directly on-chain, enabling features like locked-in spending paths and more expressive application logic without leaving the base layer. With a hard cap of 21 million coins and halving cadence aligned with Bitcoin, the monetary supply mirrors its parent even as the roadmap favors larger blocks over layer-2 channels like Lightning, aiming for reliable low fees and throughput that scales to many tens of transactions per second under typical usage. Practical touches complete the picture: the CashAddr address format reduces cross-chain errors by distinguishing BCH from BTC, and the network’s focus on fast, peer-to-peer settlement fits point-of-sale, remittances, and microtransactions where predictable fees and quick confirmations matter. In sum, Bitcoin Cash pursues the original electronic cash ideal with an emphasis on capacity and simplicity at the base layer, a system where blocks move like broad doors opening, inviting more everyday activity inside.