Are Bitcoin Cash and SV better than Bitcoin?

In recent days, there have been some reports that BCH (Bitcoin Cash) and BSV (Bitcoin SV) are performing better than BTC (Bitcoin). 

Is this true? Are their prices outperforming those of their big brother? 

Bitcoin Cash (BCH)

Since Sunday, the price of BCH has increased by 7%. 

During the same period, BTC was up +6%. 

So it does seem that Bitcoin Cash is outperforming Bitcoin, but as the difference is small, it is worth extending the analysis to a longer period. 

Firstly, since the beginning of October, BCH has lost 3% while BTC has gained 5%. 

Taking the end of August as a reference instead, BCH is up almost +11%, while BTC is up +9%. Again, Bitcoin Cash is outperforming Bitcoin, but not by much. 

Compared to the July highs, BCH is down -28%, while BTC is down only -11%. 

Compared to the June lows, BCH is actually +134%, while BTC is only +14%. 

So it can be said that Bitcoin Cash has hardly outperformed Bitcoin since the June boom, if at all. Moreover, it has fallen more during the downturns. 

However, as far as the June boom is concerned, it should be added that since the beginning of the year up to that point, BCH was up only +7%, while BTC was up +50%. 

This means that since the beginning of the year, Bitcoin Cash is up an excellent +37%, while Bitcoin is up +72%. This difference is almost entirely due to the June boom.

The fact is that BCH lost much more than BTC during the 2022 bear market, so the June rally was a bigger bounce from a bigger drop last year.

In fact, compared to the highs of 2021, Bitcoin Cash is currently still at -87%, while Bitcoin has now risen to -59%. 

Bitcoin SV (BSV)

A similar argument can be made for BSV. 

The difference, however, is that it saw a small spike on Monday, followed by another spike that saw it rise +27% over Sunday. BCH had to make do with +7% over the same period. 

BSV, on the other hand, had lost a lot of ground after the boom in June, so much so that it has only gained 79% since the June lows, compared to BCH’s +134%. 

In June, Bitcoin SV was up a remarkable +128%, still less than BCH’s +215%, but by the end of August it had fallen 49%. 

The problem is that between January and June it had fallen quite a bit, so much so that it is now only +5% over the start of the year, compared to +137% for BCH and +72% for BTC. 

In other words, Monday’s excellent performance is just enough to recoup what it has lost since the beginning of the year and to rise slightly above its opening price. 

Furthermore, BSV has lost up to 90% of its 2021 highs, painting an even worse picture than Bitcoin Cash, despite Monday’s small boom. 

It should be noted that the verified X profile of Satoshi Nakamoto started tweeting again at the beginning of October. The co-founder of the Bitcoin SV project, Craig Wright, claims to be the real Satoshi Nakamoto, and it is possible that someone from the Bitcoin SV staff, or Wright himself, is behind this profile. 

Although few believe him, this factor may have played a role.

Bitcoin forks: Bitcoin Cash and BSV

BCH and BSV are both forks of bitcoin. 

BCH, or bitcoin cash, was born in August 2017 as a direct fork of BTC (the real bitcoin). At the time, it simply presented itself as a version with larger blocks that could accommodate more transactions, so that more of them could be validated. 

It peaked right there in 2017, and has never been able to return to those highs since, not even in 2021. 

Suffice it to say that while BCH was hitting its all-time high, BTC was hitting $20,000 for the first time, and during the bull run of the next cycle it was hitting almost $70,000, while BCH was never able to hit any more all-time highs. 

At the moment, the Bitcoin Cash project seems to be just trying to stay afloat without any further growth. 

In November 2018, Bitcoin Satoshi’s Vision (BSV) was born out of a fork of Bitcoin Cash, with annals remembering it as the hashwar that sent the price of BTC plummeting to $3,200 from $20,000 the year before. 

So BCH is a fork of bitcoin, while BSV is a fork of the bitcoin fork. 

The fate of the BSV project does not look very different from that of BCH, while Bitcoin continues its march with no rivals or competitors.