Why we count BTC, BCH and BSV as three cryptocurrencies

The ranking counts a thing as a cryptocurrency when it satisfies two conditions: it has its own base-layer blockchain, and it has its own consensus mechanism. Every other decision on the site follows from those two. Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin SV all pass, independently, and none of the reasons people give for treating them as one asset survive the test.

Test 1: an own blockchain

The three chains shared a history up to block 478,558 (August 2017), when Bitcoin Cash split off, and up to block 556,766 (November 2018), when Bitcoin SV split from Bitcoin Cash. Since those blocks, each network has produced its own sequence of blocks — its own headers, its own ordering of transactions, its own state. A block that exists on one of the three does not exist on the other two.

That is what "own blockchain" means at the level a counting rule can check: a distinct, continuing sequence of blocks that no other network confirms. Every fork test resolves to that. The shared prehistory doesn't disqualify any of them any more than a shared ancestor makes two species the same species.

Test 2: an own consensus mechanism

All three run SHA-256 proof-of-work, but the algorithm is not the mechanism. Consensus is the process by which a network agrees on which blocks are valid — the algorithm is one input to that process. The set of nodes checking validity, the rules those nodes enforce, and the miners choosing which chain to extend are different populations on each of the three networks. When Bitcoin decided in 2017 not to raise the block-size limit, Bitcoin Cash's nodes did not accept that decision. When Bitcoin Cash later restricted script behaviour that Bitcoin SV wanted preserved, BSV's nodes did not accept that decision either. Three separate populations, three separate agreements, three separate mechanisms.

A useful test: if the same block is broadcast to all three networks, how many accept it? Almost never all three, because the validity rules diverged the day each fork happened and have kept diverging. If one algorithm meant one consensus, that answer would be "always all three." It isn't.

The wrapped-BTC comparison, since that's the site's other rule

Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) is on the site's list of things that are not counted, because its value is the Bitcoin held against it — take the custodian's BTC away and the wrapper is worth nothing. BSV is different in every measurable way. Nobody holds Bitcoin against a BSV coin; there is no redemption. A BSV coin's value is what BSV's own market pays for it, secured by BSV's own miners under BSV's own rules. It stands or falls on its own. The two failure modes — custodian collapse for WBTC, network abandonment for BSV — have nothing in common.

That is the operational difference the counting rule turns on: a claim depends on the counter-party that issued it; a cryptocurrency depends only on itself.

Where the three actually differ

The three don't try to be the same thing, so they aren't. The technical divergence is measurable — block-size limit is the cleanest place to see it — and the ranking's own purpose and regulatory class columns capture the rest.

Block-size limits from the curated chain table. Purposes from each chain's ranking entry. Regulatory class from the joint SEC-CFTC 2026 interpretation — sixteen tokens were named; BSV was not among them, which is why it reads as unclassified rather than as anything else.

Two chains designed for the same job would converge; these three haven't. The block-size figure is a design decision about what the chain is for, and BTC's 1 MB, BCH's 32 MB and BSV's 4 GB describe three genuinely different products. The ranking records that difference rather than pretending it away.

What the counting rule does not care about

The rule is deliberately content-neutral. It doesn't care which chain wrote the original whitepaper, which one inherited the ticker, which one has the most Twitter followers, or which one a particular reader considers the "real" Bitcoin. Those are historical and political questions and the answer to each of them changes nothing about whether a chain satisfies the two tests. All three do. All three are counted.

This is the same principle the site applies to everything else. A ranking that started dropping chains on the basis of who calls them what would collapse into whichever camp the editors happen to sympathise with. The two-condition test can be checked from public data and does not require the editor to have a preferred side.

What the market does about it

The reader can see the three markets have different views on the three chains. Bitcoin sits at rank #1 with a market cap of $1.54 trillion. Bitcoin Cash sits at #13 with $5.8 billion. Bitcoin SV sits at #39 with $357 million. Their SHA-256 hashrates carry the same order — 917 EH/s, 3.80 EH/s and 303 PH/s respectively — because miners follow the money and the money follows conviction. That the market weights them very differently is not a reason to stop counting them; it is a reason the ranks are what they are.

Market and hashrate figures are from the data build of 22 August 2026 and move with every six-hourly refresh. Fork block heights, block-size limits and regulatory determinations are stable and do not.