Bitcoin cash was created as a split from bitcoin, called a fork in blockchain circles, so the two are closely related. Yet they are different and that is the primary reason bitcoin cash exists, for those differences.

Transaction fees for bitcoin have also dropped significantly, making it a viable competitor to bitcoin cash for daily use. It should be kept in mind that the average transaction price is calculated by evaluating the fee at the time of transaction verification by the miners. The transaction fee is affected by a wide range of factors, including the amount and network traffic. Apart from this, crypto exchanges, wallets, and trading platforms charge their commissions and service fees, depending on geographical location, Split BCH/BCHA mode of payment, and if bch is being sold or purchased. As bitcoin gained more popularity, its price didn't only surge but also became highly volatile, making it more of an asset class instead of a traditional currency alternative. The bitcoin blockchain failed to scale proportionately with the growth in the number of transactions, which led to processing delays and higher fee. It was caused by the block size, which was capped at a maximum of 1mb.

As of may 2018, daily transaction numbers for bitcoin cash are about one-tenth of those of bitcoin. Coinbase listed bitcoin cash on december 19, 2017 and the coinbase platform experienced price abnormalities that led to an insider trading investigation. The second fork on bitcoin cash’s blockchain also highlights problems with managing its developer pool. That a sizeable section of the pool thought that bitcoin cash was diluting its original vision is troubling because it opens the door to further splits in the future. Smart contracts are an essential feature of all cryptocurrencies. However, it remains to be seen whether bitcoin cash pivots to become a platform for incorporating smart contracts for transactions or simply for payment systems.

As a result, transactions got in line waiting to be verified as smaller blocks weren't able to handle more transactions while maintaining a faster processing speed. To sum it up simply, the bitcoin cash developers were originally dissatisfied with the decisions made in regards to bitcoin’s development. Specifically, they were dissatisfied over the implementation of segregated witness . The bitcoin cash developers believe that segwit is a compromise to the decentralization of the bitcoin network. They believed that the network could have increased its block size instead in order to allow bitcoin to grow as a currency. Together, this group formed a plan to split from the bitcoin blockchain and created bitcoin cash with a larger block capacity limit of 8 mb.

Bitcoin went ahead with their plan to implement segwit but the newly forked bitcoin cash did not implement segwit. On 15 may 2018, the bitcoin cash block size limit was subsequently increased from 8 mb to 32 mb. Bitcoin cash trades on digital currency exchanges including bitstamp, coinbase, gemini, kraken, bitfinex, and shapeshift using the bitcoin cash name and the bch ticker symbol for the cryptocurrency. On 26 march 2018, okex removed all bitcoin cash trading pairs except for bch/btc, bch/eth and bch/usdt due to "Inadequate liquidity".