What is Bitcoin SV?
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🟢 The simple version
Plain English — no jargon. Start here.
Bitcoin SV (Satoshi's Vision) is a cryptocurrency that forked from Bitcoin Cash in November 2018, driven by Craig Wright and Calvin Ayre, with the stated goal of restoring "original Bitcoin" through massive block sizes — but is primarily known for the controversial and legally contested claim by Craig Wright that he is Satoshi Nakamoto.
The fork chain: Bitcoin → Bitcoin Cash → Bitcoin SV
Bitcoin SV's origins: Bitcoin forked into Bitcoin Cash (BCH) in August 2017 over the block size debate. Bitcoin Cash then itself forked in November 2018 — a "hash war" between two BCH factions. One faction (Bitcoin ABC, led by Roger Ver and Bitmain) wanted protocol upgrades including smart contract features. The other (nChain, led by Craig Wright and funded by Calvin Ayre) wanted only larger block sizes and claimed to represent Bitcoin's original design. The two factions mined competing chains simultaneously for several days, each trying to accumulate more proof-of-work. Bitcoin ABC won the hash war and kept the BCH ticker; the nChain faction split off as Bitcoin SV.
BSV's technical focus: massive block sizes
BSV's primary technical differentiation is extremely large blocks. Starting from Bitcoin's 1MB block limit and Bitcoin Cash's 32MB limit, BSV progressively increased its block limit to 128MB, then to 2GB, and ultimately removed the block size cap entirely. The theory: larger blocks allow more transactions per block at low fees, enabling BSV to process a high enough volume to compete with Visa/Mastercard payment systems on-chain without Layer 2 solutions.
Craig Wright and the Satoshi claim — documented factually
Craig Wright, the primary proponent of BSV, has publicly claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto since 2016. This claim has been contested by virtually the entire Bitcoin development community. In 2024, the UK High Court ruled in the case of COPA v Wright that Craig Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto and that his claims and evidence were fabricated. The ruling is a matter of public legal record. This page documents this fact because it is directly relevant to BSV's narrative and history.
Is it legal in India?
Yes. BSV is a VDA under Indian law. 30% tax and 1% TDS apply. See India regulation.
🟡 A bit more detail
For when you want to go a little deeper.
The BSV large block thesis
BSV's technical theory: a blockchain should be a global single-layer ledger where all transaction types — micropayments, data storage, smart contracts, token issuance — happen directly in base-layer transactions without Layer 2. Larger blocks allow this by accommodating more transactions per block. BSV uses the original Bitcoin scripting language (Script) with some opcodes restored that Satoshi removed or limited in early Bitcoin versions — enabling more complex transaction types without a separate smart contract VM like Ethereum.
BSV has been used by projects building applications that store data directly on the blockchain — large blocks make this feasible where Bitcoin's small blocks make it prohibitively expensive. Several data storage and micropayment applications have been built on BSV by developers who believe in the large-block approach. The Teranode project (BSV's high-performance node implementation) has demonstrated processing of very high transaction volumes in test environments. Most major exchanges delisted BSV following the COPA v Wright court ruling in 2024.
Major exchange delistings — documented
Following the April 2024 UK High Court ruling in COPA v Wright (confirming Craig Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto), several major cryptocurrency exchanges delisted BSV. Binance had previously delisted BSV in 2019 after Craig Wright threatened to sue critics. The delistings reduced BSV's liquidity significantly. This history is documented as factually relevant context for understanding BSV's market position.
Key BSV metrics: transaction count (often high due to data storage applications), block size utilisation, developer activity, exchange listing status, and real-world adoption of BSV-based applications. BSV's technical claims about large-block scalability have empirical merit as an engineering approach, independent of the controversy surrounding its leadership. The technology and the controversy are separable when evaluating the protocol. Live data: CoinGecko · WhatsOnChain (BSV explorer).
🟣 The full technical picture
For the technically curious.
BSV's protocol design — restored Script opcodes
BSV restored several Bitcoin Script opcodes that were deactivated in early Bitcoin versions (2010-2011) due to bugs and security concerns. These include OP_MUL, OP_DIV, OP_MOD, OP_LSHIFT, OP_RSHIFT, and string concatenation operations. BSV's claim: these opcodes are needed for the full range of transaction types envisioned in Bitcoin's original whitepaper. Critics: these opcodes were removed for good reasons, and their restoration without thorough re-analysis introduces security risks. BSV also uses Simplified Payment Verification (SPV) as its primary scaling approach — the whitepaper's SPV model allows users to verify transactions without running full nodes.
Sources: Bitcoin SV documentation. wiki.bitcoinsv.io · COPA v Wright UK High Court judgment (2024): publicly available at judiciary.gov.uk
The hash war of 2018
The November 2018 BCH hash war was unusual in Bitcoin history. Rather than a traditional fork where one chain diverges and the other continues, both factions simultaneously mined competing chains and threatened to use their hash power to attack the other chain's longest chain. Bitcoin ABC (the BCH fork) and Bitcoin SV each accumulated significant hashrate — both factions spent millions of dollars in mining costs over several days. Bitcoin ABC accumulated more work and was accepted as BCH by exchanges. BSV persisted as a separate chain. The economic cost of the hash war — estimated in the tens of millions of dollars in mining expenditure — made it one of the most expensive blockchain disputes in history.
BSV's "Genesis" upgrade (February 2020) removed the default transaction size limit (previously 100KB) and the block size cap, making BSV protocol parameters fully adjustable by miners rather than enforced by software. This design philosophy — "miners set the rules, not developers" — is central to BSV's governance model: protocol parameters are set by miner consensus rather than developer releases. Critics argue this creates a governance model where large mining entities can unilaterally change protocol rules without broader community input. Proponents argue it is the correct model because miners bear the economic cost of their choices.
Key facts
- Fork from: Bitcoin Cash (November 2018, hash war)
- Block size: Uncapped (Genesis upgrade, February 2020)
- Satoshi claim: Craig Wright — ruled false by UK High Court (April 2024)
- Supply: 21 million BSV
- Algorithm: SHA-256 (same as Bitcoin)
- Major delistings: Binance (2019), multiple exchanges (2024)