<p>Bitcoin Cash has the same hard limit as Bitcoin, almost <strong>21 million</strong>. In terms of supply, it is identical to Bitcoin, with the same halving of supply, at the same block heights.</p>

<p>However, there is a difference in the difficulty adjustment algorithm. Difficulty is the variable that ensures that there is one block mined every 10 minutes. It increases as the number of miners/hashpower in the network increases. In Bitcoin, the difficulty is adjusted every 2016 blocks, based on how long it took for those 2016 blocks to get mined. So every 2 weeks (approximately) the difficulty is adjusted based on how much hashpower was added to the network in that time.</p>

<p>Initially, Bitcoin cash had the same difficulty adjustment algorithm with one addition, which was called <strong>Emergency Difficulty Adjustement</strong> (EDA). If no blocks had been found for 12 hours, then the difficulty would reduce by 20%. This was put in place to prevent the chain from stagnating  and dying due to lack of hashpower as it was unknown as to how much support BCH would receive from miners.</p>

<p>This algorithm, however, was susceptible to being gamed by the miners. Miners would intentionally abandon mining BCH for a period of time. This would trigger EDA multiple times, and then when the difficulty was low enough to be profitable, they would start mining BCH, and mine 2016 blocks in 3-4 days (instead of 2 weeks). After 2016 low-difficulty blocks are mined, the difficulty would be readjusted to a sufficiently high amount, and the miners would abandon the BCH chain again. </p>

<p>If you compare the supply of BTC and BCH, in the 4 months since the fork, there is a difference in approximately 120,000 coins. This was problematic as BCH blocks were no longer predictable. The block times varied from 12+ hours to less than a minute.</p>

<p>On November 13th, Bitcoin Cash underwent a hard fork to change the difficulty adjustment algorithm. Now the difficulty is readjusted <em>every block</em> based on the previous 144 blocks, to try and keep block times as close to 10 minutes as possible.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-11-23T08:07:38.807Z
2017-11-23T12:21:37.700Z
2017-11-23T12:21:37.700Z
Samarth Hattangady
<p>Bitcoin cash is the same as bitcoin except it has SegWit2x implemented and it has bigger blocks (2MB I think). Bitcoin cash is hard fork of Bitcoin.</p>

<p>The benefits of bigger blocks are more transactions per block, the current Bitcoin block size is 1MB, which means Bitcoin Cash can process 2x more transactions. </p>

<p>The other difference - SegWit essentially moves part of block data into separate block and therefore can hold even more transactions. Transactions are faster and the fees are lower because there is less waiting to be processed transactions.</p>

<p><strong>But</strong> with bigger blocks it is more expensive to support full node. Full node keeps all transactions locally.</p>

<p>With 1MB block and ~144 blocks per day mined, you will need 144MB per day, 1GB per week and 31GB for every month.</p>

<p>With 2MB blocks you'll need 144MB*2 per day, 2GB per week and ~62GB for every month. Who can afford this? Only big players and this means only one thing - centralization, we already have centralized banks and we don't want that, we want the opposite.</p>

<p>This calculations are based on the assumption that every block is filled to the max, with the current Bitcoin Cash blocks this is not the case because not so much transactions are going on right now and the blocks are ~100KB.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-08-21T12:33:33.303Z
Yo. Thanks for the info man. Do you know if the community actually has documentation / white paper abt their implementation, can't seem to find anything substantiative online.
noooooooob
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-08-21T12:48:47.070Z
I think it is better to stay away from Bitcoin Cash. Bitcoin cash is just alternative coin that is using Bitcoin for PR and will die eventually.
Yoan Arnaudov
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-08-21T16:01:36.537Z
Bitcoin Cash *removed* SegWit, so SegWit will only activate on the Bitcoin chain.
Pieter Wuille
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-08-21T17:47:49.273Z
@PieterWuille - You are right, Bitcoin Cash uses SegWit2x which is SegWit + 2mb block size.
Yoan Arnaudov
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-08-22T02:09:59.250Z
No, SegWit2x is yet another fork, planned for november.
Pieter Wuille
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-08-22T09:32:56.453Z
Okay, I'm confused, where is the official info, can you give us link?
Yoan Arnaudov
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-08-21T11:52:05.327Z
2017-08-21T17:50:18.713Z
2017-08-21T17:50:18.713Z
Yoan Arnaudov
<p>We know that for BTC there is a max supply of 21 million. 
50% reduction of 50 BTC per block for every 210000 block.</p>

<p>However, what is the mining reward per block, how is the supply being regulated? Can't seem to find any materail on it?</p>

<bitcoin-cash>
What is the supply for Bitcoin Cash (BCH), how is supply being regulated?
noooooooob
# What is the supply for Bitcoin Cash (BCH), how is supply being regulated?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2017-08-21)

We know that for BTC there is a max supply of 21 million.
50% reduction of 50 BTC per block for every 210000 block.

However, what is the mining reward per block, how is the supply being regulated? Can't seem to find any materail on it?

**Tags:** bitcoin-cash


---

## 2 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2017-11-23. Score: 5

Bitcoin Cash has the same hard limit as Bitcoin, almost **21 million**. In terms of supply, it is identical to Bitcoin, with the same halving of supply, at the same block heights.

However, there is a difference in the difficulty adjustment algorithm. Difficulty is the variable that ensures that there is one block mined every 10 minutes. It increases as the number of miners/hashpower in the network increases. In Bitcoin, the difficulty is adjusted every 2016 blocks, based on how long it took for those 2016 blocks to get mined. So every 2 weeks (approximately) the difficulty is adjusted based on how much hashpower was added to the network in that time.

Initially, Bitcoin cash had the same difficulty adjustment algorithm with one addition, which was called **Emergency Difficulty Adjustement** (EDA). If no blocks had been found for 12 hours, then the difficulty would reduce by 20%. This was put in place to prevent the chain from stagnating and dying due to lack of hashpower as it was unknown as to how much support BCH would receive from miners.

This algorithm, however, was susceptible to being gamed by the miners. Miners would intentionally abandon mining BCH for a period of time. This would trigger EDA multiple times, and then when the difficulty was low enough to be profitable, they would start mining BCH, and mine 2016 blocks in 3-4 days (instead of 2 weeks). After 2016 low-difficulty blocks are mined, the difficulty would be readjusted to a sufficiently high amount, and the miners would abandon the BCH chain again.

If you compare the supply of BTC and BCH, in the 4 months since the fork, there is a difference in approximately 120,000 coins. This was problematic as BCH blocks were no longer predictable. The block times varied from 12+ hours to less than a minute.

On November 13th, Bitcoin Cash underwent a hard fork to change the difficulty adjustment algorithm. Now the difficulty is readjusted *every block* based on the previous 144 blocks, to try and keep block times as close to 10 minutes as possible.


---

### Answer by username_2 on 2017-08-21. Score: -2

Bitcoin cash is the same as bitcoin except it has SegWit2x implemented and it has bigger blocks (2MB I think). Bitcoin cash is hard fork of Bitcoin.

The benefits of bigger blocks are more transactions per block, the current Bitcoin block size is 1MB, which means Bitcoin Cash can process 2x more transactions.

The other difference - SegWit essentially moves part of block data into separate block and therefore can hold even more transactions. Transactions are faster and the fees are lower because there is less waiting to be processed transactions.

**But** with bigger blocks it is more expensive to support full node. Full node keeps all transactions locally.

With 1MB block and ~144 blocks per day mined, you will need 144MB per day, 1GB per week and 31GB for every month.

With 2MB blocks you'll need 144MB\*2 per day, 2GB per week and ~62GB for every month. Who can afford this? Only big players and this means only one thing - centralization, we already have centralized banks and we don't want that, we want the opposite.

This calculations are based on the assumption that every block is filled to the max, with the current Bitcoin Cash blocks this is not the case because not so much transactions are going on right now and the blocks are ~100KB.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Yo. Thanks for the info man. Do you know if the community actually has documentation / white paper abt their implementation, can't seem to find anything substantiative online.  
> **username_2**: I think it is better to stay away from Bitcoin Cash. Bitcoin cash is just alternative coin that is using Bitcoin for PR and will die eventually.  
> **username_3**: Bitcoin Cash *removed* SegWit, so SegWit will only activate on the Bitcoin chain.  
> **username_2**: @username_3 - You are right, Bitcoin Cash uses SegWit2x which is SegWit + 2mb block size.  
> **username_3**: No, SegWit2x is yet another fork, planned for november.  
> **username_2**: Okay, I'm confused, where is the official info, can you give us link?  

---

