Bitcoin Cash Hard Fork
The last shared block between Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH). The community split over block size debate — BCH increased to 8 MB blocks, creating a new cryptocurrency.
The Great Block Size Debate
On August 1, 2017, Bitcoin experienced one of its most contentious moments: the blockchain split into two separate networks — Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH). Block 478,558 was the last block shared by both chains before the split.
The split was the culmination of years of debate over how to scale Bitcoin. One camp argued for larger blocks to increase transaction capacity, while the other favored keeping block sizes small and building second-layer solutions like the Lightning Network. The disagreement was fundamental and led to the first major Bitcoin hard fork.
Key Differences
Bitcoin (BTC) Block Size
1 MB (SegWit: ~4 MB)
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) Block Size
8 MB (later 32 MB)
Fork Type
Hard Fork
Date
August 1, 2017