Most Significant Bitcoin Forks in History

Explore the three most impactful Bitcoin forks that have led to the creation of major new cryptocurrencies or significant community divisions, shaping the crypto landscape.

The top 3

  1. Forks Creating New Cryptocurrencies with Largest Market Cap: Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Bitcoin SV (BSV), and Ethereum Classic (ETC) emerged as some of the most prominent cryptocurrencies from hard forks, each at times achieving significant market capitalizations. Bitcoin Cash, for example, reached an all-time high of $4,356 in December 2017. Bitcoin SV's all-time high was $491.64 on April 16, 2021. Ethereum Classic's all-time high was $175.00 on May 6, 2021.
  2. Forks Driven by Philosophical Disagreements: Key forks like Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV were born from deep philosophical divides within the Bitcoin community, particularly concerning block size, decentralization, and the original vision of Satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoin Core emphasized decentralization by keeping the 1MB block size, while Bitcoin Cash advocated for larger blocks to increase transaction capacity. Bitcoin SV further split from Bitcoin Cash, aiming to restore what its proponents considered Satoshi's original vision with significantly larger block sizes.
  3. Forks That Led to Significant Technical Upgrades: Segregated Witness (SegWit), formally BIP 141, was a crucial soft fork activated in August 2017 that addressed transaction malleability and effectively increased Bitcoin's transaction capacity without a hard fork. Another significant soft fork, Taproot, launched in November 2021, enhancing privacy, efficiency, and smart contract capabilities through Schnorr signatures.

Open the full topic