Bitcoin SV (BSV)
A 2018 hard fork of Bitcoin Cash - a fork of a fork - led by Craig Wright and Calvin Ayre under the 'Satoshi's Vision' banner. Known for very large blocks, a hash war with Bitcoin Cash, exchange delistings, and Wright's discredited claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto.
Bitcoin SV ("SV" stands for "Satoshi's Vision") is a hard fork of Bitcoin Cash, which is itself a hard fork of Bitcoin. It split off on November 15, 2018, which puts it two forks away from the original chain.
The split came out of a fight inside Bitcoin Cash over its direction. One side, around Roger Ver and Bitmain's Jihan Wu, backed the existing Bitcoin Cash client. The other, led by Craig Wright and the billionaire Calvin Ayre through Wright's company nChain, wanted far larger blocks and a different technical path, which they branded "Satoshi's Vision." When the two could not agree, they split, and then fought a "hash war." Each side pointed mining power at the other's chain, trying to win the dispute by force rather than by letting users choose.
BSV's defining bet is enormous blocks. Where Bitcoin keeps blocks small on purpose to keep full nodes cheap to run, BSV stripped out practical limits in pursuit of gigabyte-scale blocks and cheap on-chain data storage.
The project is inseparable from Craig Wright's claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin's pseudonymous creator. That claim drove much of BSV's marketing and a long run of lawsuits Wright filed against people who disputed it. In April 2019, after Wright threatened and sued his critics, Binance, Kraken, and ShapeShift delisted BSV, and its price fell sharply. In March 2024, the UK High Court ruled in COPA v Wright that Wright is not Satoshi, that he did not write the white paper or the original software, and that he had produced forged documents to support his story.
On this site, "Bitcoin" without qualification means BTC. BSV is covered as history, not as a peer chain.
Key takeaways
- BSV split from Bitcoin Cash on November 15, 2018, which puts it two forks removed from Bitcoin itself
- The split set off a 'hash war' in which the two sides aimed mining power at each other, and in April 2019 major exchanges including Binance and Kraken delisted BSV after Craig Wright sued his critics
- In March 2024 the UK High Court ruled that Craig Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto and that he had forged documents to support the claim