With talk of its volatility, its potential and its technology, there has been practically no escaping this cryptocurrency and how it’s performing in today’s markets. However, something far fewer people are aware of is Bitcoin Cash.

Despite the similar name, Bitcoin Cash is actually an entirely different cryptocurrency – so what are the differences? Read on to find out.

The split

As most will know, Bitcoin was starting to perform exceptionally well in late 2017. With highs of over $19,498 in December of that year, its popularity is undeniable, but while news circled around the high, very few news stories ventured beyond the financial industry when it came to an event known as a “hard fork.” Essentially, this meant a change in protocol – or an upgrade of sorts – to Bitcoin, but it quickly became clear that not everyone agreed on how the development should go.

Miners wanted bigger blocks that would allow more data in each mined block, while common users and developers wanted something similar in that they were seeking more data per block, but by implementing Segregated Witness (SegWit) – which would compress the data to fit the block size already in play.

As a result, Bitcoin forked, and so BCH was born as a new cryptocurrency. Bitcoin Cash is the miner-supported chain, while regular bitcoin remains the developer and user favourite.

What is the difference?

Despite the two cryptocurrencies being pretty similar in nature (after all, they both form from the same cryptocurrency), it’s important to know the difference and understand that they are very much separate from one another. Below are some of the main differences:

Bitcoin

Bitcoin is the cryptocurrency that most will know, use and be used to. In general, Bitcoin has much better security than its forked counterpart, and with better stability through a much more widely developed infrastructure, it’s no wonder that people are still leaning towards Bitcoin rather than BCH.

It’s highly distributed, but for this reason, it’s also much slower than Bitcoin Cash and can often come with much higher transaction fees stamped on top.

Bitcoin cash

Bitcoin Cash is the forked counterpart to Bitcoin, and while it works in a very similar way to the former, it’s actually much faster and usually comes with lower transaction fees. However, it’s also not highly popular.

Due to the success of Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash usually goes overlooked, or is confused with the original cryptocurrency but it’s paramount to know the difference – if you try and send Bitcoin Cash to a Bitcoin address, you’re likely to lose the money altogether.

Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash are obviously very similar in how they operate, but understanding that they are different cryptocurrencies in and of themselves is a must.

While Bitcoin Cash has lower transaction fees and faster speeds, Bitcoin takes the cake as far as popularity and ability to spend are concerned – which do you prefer?