Bitcoin Cash

Bitcoin Cash receives a B risk grade (25/100) from Hindenrank, where lower scores indicate lower risk. Moderate risk — proven Bitcoin-derived design with hashrate rental vulnerability from shared SHA-256 mining, balanced by 7+ years of operation and active development. Bitcoin Cash is a 2017 hard fork of Bitcoin that increased the block size limit to 32MB to enable higher transaction throughput and lower fees. With a market cap of approximately $10.5 billion, BCH ranks among the top 20 cryptocurrencies. Its B grade reflects a clean mechanism profile inherited from Bitcoin's proven design, offset by risks from sharing SHA-256 mining with Bitcoin (making it vulnerable to hashrate rental attacks) and a 2020 mining pool coordination incident during a contentious fork.

The key risks identified for Bitcoin Cash are: (1) Bitcoin Cash shares SHA-256 mining hardware with Bitcoin, meaning miners can switch between chains. Since BCH commands a small fraction of total SHA-256 hashrate, an attacker could rent sufficient mining power to execute a 51% attack at far lower cost than attacking Bitcoin itself. (2) In 2020, mining pools BTC.COM and BTC.TOP coordinated to reorganize the BCH chain during a contentious upgrade, demonstrating that concentrated mining power can override normal consensus. While framed as a protective action, it revealed a centralization vulnerability. (3) BCH's core value proposition of low transaction fees creates a structural tension with long-term security. As block rewards halve on the same schedule as Bitcoin, fee revenue must eventually sustain miners, but the low-fee design ensures this revenue remains minimal. (4) The BCH ecosystem is significantly smaller than Bitcoin's, with lower DeFi activity, fewer developers, and less institutional support. The upcoming CashVM upgrade (May 2026) aims to improve smart contract capabilities, but adoption remains uncertain.

Bitcoin Cash scores 25/100 across eight risk dimensions: Mechanism Novelty: 0/15, Interaction Severity: 3/20, Oracle Surface: 0/10, Documentation Gaps: 3/10, Track Record: 3/15, Scale Exposure: 9/10, Regulatory Risk: 1/10, Vitality Risk: 6/10. The highest risk area is Scale Exposure at 9/10.

Among 56 rated L1 protocols on Hindenrank, Bitcoin Cash ranks #10 by safety (lowest risk score = safest). Its 25/100 risk score and B grade place it among the safer L1 protocols.

Bitcoin Cash scores 3/15 on the Track Record risk dimension, indicating some history of security incidents or exploits. Higher scores reflect more severe or frequent incidents. Review the full risk report for details.