# The Paradigmatic Case: Bitcoin Cash

In 2017, part of the community proposed increasing the block size to allow a greater number of transactions per second. This proposal clashed with those who defended keeping small blocks and scaling through off-chain solutions, such as Lightning Network.

The lack of consensus led to a hard fork:

* The original chain retained the name Bitcoin (BTC).
* The new version adopted the name Bitcoin Cash (BCH), with larger blocks and a more transactional orientation.

Both share the same history up to block 478559, but their approaches are substantially different.

| Scalability | Layer 2 (Lightning Network) | On-chain scaling (large blocks)    |
| ----------- | --------------------------- | ---------------------------------- |
| Philosophy  | Store of value              | Everyday medium of payment         |
| Governance  | More decentralized          | More concentrated among developers |
| Narrative   | “Digital Gold”              | “P2P electronic Cash”              |


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