What Is Bitcoin SV?

Bitcoin SV (BSV) is a Layer 1 cryptocurrency that emerged from a contentious hard fork of Bitcoin Cash in November 2018. Its name is short for "Bitcoin Satoshi's Vision," and the project's founding pitch was that Bitcoin should scale through massive on-chain blocks rather than off-chain layers, restoring the original Bitcoin script and removing block-size and data-payload limits. BSV is now stewarded by the Switzerland-based BSV Association and positions itself primarily as an enterprise data and payments blockchain.

Overview - Table of Contents
What Is Bitcoin SV?
Getting Started With Bitcoin SV
How To Get A Bitcoin SV Wallet?
Bitcoin SV Resources
How To Buy Bitcoin SV?
Latest Bitcoin SV News

BSV split from Bitcoin Cash on November 15, 2018 at block 556,767, after a long dispute over scaling philosophy and protocol changes culminated in a "hash war" between two competing implementations: Bitcoin SV and Bitcoin ABC. Key figures associated with BSV include Craig Wright (chief scientist at nChain), Calvin Ayre (a Canadian gambling entrepreneur and CoinGeek owner), and the founding leadership of the Bitcoin Association, which has since rebranded to the BSV Association. Wright has long publicly claimed to be Satoshi Nakamoto, a claim that has been comprehensively rejected in court (see below).

Technically, BSV uses Bitcoin's SHA-256 proof-of-work and a 10-minute target block time. The defining design choice is its commitment to on-chain scaling. The Genesis hard fork in February 2020 removed the default block-size limit and the OP_RETURN data-carrier cap, leaving sizing decisions to miner policy, and restored the original opcodes from the early Bitcoin script. The result is a chain that has supported multi-gigabyte blocks in stress tests, an effectively unbounded data-carrier capacity, and very low transaction fees, often well below a cent.

Software-wise, BSV runs the SV Node implementation alongside Teranode, a horizontally scaled microservices node implementation aimed at very high throughput. The first public release of Teranode shipped in October 2025. The Chronicle hard fork activated on mainnet in April 2026, restoring additional original Bitcoin protocol features and expanding scripting limits to support more complex on-chain applications.

BSV shares Bitcoin's monetary policy, with a fixed maximum supply of 21 million coins and the same halving schedule. Beyond payments, BSV's stewardship organization markets the chain at enterprise use cases that benefit from cheap, high-throughput on-chain data: micropayments, supply chain attestation, audit trails, and government records. The Paymail standard provides human-readable addresses, and SPV-first wallets such as HandCash are designed to make day-to-day BSV usage feel more like a consumer payment app than a typical crypto wallet.

BSV remains a polarizing project. Several major exchanges, including Binance, Kraken, and ShapeShift, delisted BSV in April 2019 after Wright sent legal threats to people calling him "Faketoshi." It still trades on a number of mid-tier centralized venues, but its liquidity is materially thinner than top-tier assets, and it does not appear on the largest US exchanges. The community and protocol leadership have, especially since the 2024 court ruling against Wright's Satoshi claim, emphasized the chain's technical roadmap and enterprise traction over Wright's personal disputes.

Getting Started With Bitcoin SV

Acquiring and using BSV:

Step 1: Choose a wallet that supports BSV (HandCash, ElectrumSV, Centbee, or a hardware wallet such as Ledger).
Step 2: Acquire BSV on a centralized exchange that supports it (Bitfinex, OKX, Gate, KuCoin, Bitstamp, and others).
Step 3: Withdraw BSV from the exchange to your self-custody wallet.
Step 4: For day-to-day payments, consider a Paymail-enabled wallet such as HandCash, which uses human-readable addresses instead of long Bitcoin-style strings.

Note that BSV is not supported on Coinbase, Binance, or Kraken, so US users in particular may find their on-ramp options more limited than for other top cryptocurrencies.

How to Get a Bitcoin SV Wallet?

BSV has its own wallet ecosystem, distinct from Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash:

HandCash

HandCash is a popular mobile BSV wallet with first-class support for the Paymail standard, allowing payments to human-readable addresses (e.g., $username) rather than long Bitcoin-style strings. It is designed for everyday consumer use.

ElectrumSV

ElectrumSV is the BSV-specific fork of the long-running Electrum desktop wallet. It is aimed at more technical users and supports advanced features such as hardware wallet integration and multi-signature setups.

Centbee

Centbee is a mobile wallet with a focus on global payments and remittances using BSV, with on-ramps and off-ramps in selected regions.

Hardware Wallets

Ledger hardware wallets support BSV for cold storage of larger holdings. Hardware wallets are strongly recommended for long-term holders, paired with a desktop wallet such as ElectrumSV for transaction signing.

Bitcoin SV Resources

How to Buy Bitcoin SV?

After the 2019 wave of delistings, BSV is no longer available on Binance, Coinbase, or Kraken, but it still trades on a number of other venues:

Centralized Exchanges

BSV is listed on Bitfinex, OKX, Gate, KuCoin, MEXC, Bitget, Bybit, HTX, Bitstamp, and Upbit, among others. Trading pairs are typically against USDT, BTC, and selected fiat currencies, depending on the exchange. Liquidity is thinner than for top-tier assets, so check spreads and order book depth for larger trades.

Decentralized Options

Because BSV runs on its own chain rather than as a token on a smart-contract platform, decentralized exchange options are limited. Atomic swaps and OTC desks are sometimes used for larger trades.

After purchasing, BSV can be moved to a self-custody wallet such as HandCash, ElectrumSV, or a hardware wallet for long-term storage.

Latest Bitcoin SV News

The most consequential recent event for the BSV ecosystem was the March 2024 ruling in the COPA v Wright case, in which the UK High Court found that Craig Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto and did not author the Bitcoin white paper, and that he had forged documents on a grand scale. A subsequent worldwide anti-suit injunction barred Wright from re-asserting the Satoshi claim, and in late 2024 he received a 12-month suspended prison sentence for contempt of court after attempting to file a related claim in violation of that injunction. The BSV Association's communications since then have largely focused on the chain's technical roadmap rather than Wright's personal disputes.

On the technology side, the public release of Teranode in October 2025 and the activation of the Chronicle hard fork in April 2026 marked the most significant protocol changes since Genesis in 2020. Together, the upgrades are intended to push BSV's throughput and scripting capabilities further toward its enterprise pitch. As with any thinly liquid, controversial cryptocurrency, holders should weigh the project's technical progress against its history and exchange-coverage limitations.