# Bitcoin Forks

This chapter looks at the major forks of Bitcoin, how and why they came about, and the different directions each community chose to pursue.

# Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV) – A Brief History

## Origins

Bitcoin Satoshi Vision (BSV) emerged in **November 2018** as the result of a contentious hard fork from **Bitcoin Cash (BCH)**. Bitcoin Cash itself had forked from **Bitcoin (BTC)** in **August 2017**, originally to increase block sizes and pursue a vision of peer-to-peer digital cash.

## The Dispute

Within the Bitcoin Cash community, disagreements grew around the technical roadmap:

- **Block Size:** BCH developers favored a gradual approach to scaling, while Craig Wright and Calvin Ayre’s CoinGeek group pushed for much larger block sizes, claiming this was closer to the original whitepaper vision.
- **Script Changes & Features:** BCH developers introduced new opcodes and features that BSV supporters argued deviated from “Satoshi’s Vision.”

## The Fork

The conflict culminated in a **hash war** in November 2018, where miners aligned with each camp directed hash power to their preferred chain. The outcome was a split:

- **Bitcoin Cash ABC (later just BCH):** Backed by developers like Amaury Séchet and much of the BCH community.
- **Bitcoin SV (Satoshi Vision):** Backed by Craig Wright, Calvin Ayre, and their allies, with an initial block size of 128 MB, later expanded to **2 GB and beyond**.

## Philosophy

BSV’s stated mission is to restore Bitcoin to what its supporters believe was the “original protocol” described in the 2008 whitepaper—unbounded scaling, low-fee transactions, and enterprise-level blockchain applications.

## Controversy

Since its inception, BSV has been controversial:

- Craig Wright’s claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto is widely disputed.
- Many exchanges delisted BSV in 2019 after public disputes.
- Development continues under **nChain** and associated entities, with a focus on data storage, micro-payments, and large-scale blockchain solutions.

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