What is Bitcoin SV (BSV) and how is it different from Bitcoin?

Bitcoin SV (BSV) is a cryptocurrency and blockchain that broke away from Bitcoin Cash in 2018, which itself had split from Bitcoin. Its supporters say it follows the original design of Bitcoin more closely, mainly by allowing very large blocks. It is a separate coin with its own network, miners and transaction history.

What is Bitcoin SV (BSV)?

BSV was created by a hard fork of Bitcoin Cash on November 15, 2018. The name stands for "Bitcoin Satoshi Vision", a reference to the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin. Gemini's explainer says the split came from a dispute over scaling: one group felt Bitcoin Cash was not scaling enough and wanted to return to the design of early Bitcoin software. The nChain team led development, and Craig Wright is widely described as the project's creator.

Wright spent years claiming to be Satoshi Nakamoto. In May 2024 the English High Court ruled in a case brought by the Crypto Open Patent Alliance that he is not the creator of Bitcoin, and the judge found he had produced false documents to support the claim. You can read more about the real open question in who created Bitcoin.

What is Bitcoin SV used for?

The BSV Association, which promotes the network, describes it as an electronic cash system built for large transaction volumes. It says fees are typically fractions of a cent, which is meant to make micropayments practical. The association also promotes tokens, smart contracts and data applications that run directly on the base chain, without a separate layer on top, and offers developer kits for building these.

What is the difference between Bitcoin and Bitcoin SV?

The two share the same early history and the same proof-of-work design, where miners compete to add blocks. The key difference is block size. BSV launched with a 128 MB default block size, and a July 2019 upgrade raised the limit to 2 GB. Miners can choose the block sizes they will produce. Larger blocks fit more transactions, but critics point out that they make running a full node more demanding, which can reduce decentralization.

Bitcoin kept small blocks and added scaling through upgrades and second layers instead. For how the first split happened, see Bitcoin vs Bitcoin Cash. BTC, BCH and BSV are three different coins on three different chains.

What is the Bitcoin SV block reward?

Like Bitcoin, BSV pays miners a block subsidy of newly created coins plus transaction fees. The subsidy halves roughly every four years. The BSV Academy states that the subsidy was 3.125 BSV per block as of 2025. The project's view is that over time miners should rely more on fees from high transaction volume than on new coins.

As of October 2026, BSV remains a niche network compared with Bitcoin, and its future depends on whether its large-block approach attracts real use.