Should You Forget Bitcoin and Buy Bitcoin Cash Instead?

With market bellwether Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) down 4% for the year, it's no surprise that crypto investors have been scrambling for alternatives.

But it's been slim pickings in 2025. Only a handful of top cryptocurrencies are in the green for the year, and many of them are relatively unknown to investors. One of the most promising of these is Bitcoin Cash (CRYPTO: BCH). It's up 30% for the year, and now ranks as the 11th-largest cryptocurrency in the world.

Is now the time to rotate out of Bitcoin and into Bitcoin Cash? Or is this exactly the type of short-term momentum-based move that's bound to wreck your portfolio later?

Bitcoin vs. Bitcoin Cash

As you might have guessed from the name, Bitcoin Cash is a direct spinoff of Bitcoin. In the crypto and blockchain world, this is known as a hard fork. This occurs when the blockchain of one cryptocurrency is split into two different pieces. From there, they go their own separate way.

Both Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash are governed by the same core algorithm, and both have a lifetime circulating supply of 21 million coins. The only real difference is the size of each block on their respective blockchains. Bitcoin Cash has larger block sizes, and that makes it more suitable for peer-to-peer transactions. Simply put, the larger the block, the more information it can hold, and the faster the processing time becomes.

Image source: Getty Images.

Bitcoin Cash launched in August 2017, and at the time, some Bitcoin purists thought it represented a more accurate version of the vision outlined by Satoshi Nakamoto in the original Bitcoin whitepaper. The name of that paper was "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System."

Unlike Bitcoin -- which has never really been used as electronic cash at scale -- Bitcoin Cash was supposed to be much more utilitarian. You were actually supposed to pay for things with your Bitcoin, rather than just hoard it.

The difference between Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash can be defined by how you view Bitcoin as a digital currency. Should it primarily be a "store of value," or should it primarily be a "medium of exchange?" If you think it should be a store of value, then you buy Bitcoin. If not, you buy Bitcoin Cash.

Long-run performance

In many ways, the performance of Bitcoin Cash this year has been a market anomaly. This might be oversimplifying things, but every year, Bitcoin tends to outperform Bitcoin Cash by a wide margin.

Just look at the five-year chart. Bitcoin is up a robust 857% during that time period, while Bitcoin Cash is up only 50%.

Bitcoin / U.S. dollar chart by TradingView

While Bitcoin Cash may be having a banner year in 2025, it's hard to see how it can outperform Bitcoin over an extended period. If you're a long-term, buy-and-hold investor, it's best to take Bitcoin Cash's 30% returns this year with a grain of salt.

There are several possible explanations for Bitcoin Cash's unexpected rise in value this year, but none of them are entirely satisfying.

The most likely explanation is that investors are desperately searching for hard assets amid macroeconomic uncertainty, and have landed on Bitcoin Cash as a potentially "harder" asset than Bitcoin. From this perspective, Bitcoin Cash is part of the so-called "debasement trade," as traders move out of fiat currencies and into gold, precious metals, and other hard assets.

Never sell your Bitcoin

There's a famous maxim within the crypto world: "Never sell your Bitcoin." That includes now, when Bitcoin is struggling to tread water.

Yes, there are years when different players within the Bitcoin blockchain ecosystem can outperform Bitcoin itself. In 2023, Bitcoin miners soared in value. In 2024, Bitcoin treasury companies soared in value. And in 2025, a hard fork of the Bitcoin blockchain -- Bitcoin Cash -- is soaring in value.

But over time, Bitcoin is the place to be for long-term investors. You should never forget Bitcoin, and you should never sell your Bitcoin. There's now a long-enough track record for crypto investors to see this firsthand: Over any extended period, Bitcoin will likely outperform other elements of the Bitcoin blockchain ecosystem.

So hold on to your Bitcoin in 2026. Your portfolio will thank you later.

Dominic Basulto has positions in Bitcoin. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.