You send Bitcoin Cash (BCH) by entering the recipient's Bitcoin Cash address in your wallet, choosing an amount, and confirming. The payment reaches the recipient's wallet within seconds, the network fee is generally less than a cent, and the transaction confirms in the next block, which arrives about every ten minutes.
Send in the Bitcoin.com Wallet app:
- Open the Bitcoin.com Wallet app and tap Send
- Select Bitcoin Cash and paste or scan the recipient's address
- Enter the amount in BCH or your local currency
- Review the details and slide to confirm
Key Takeaways
- Sending BCH needs three things: the recipient's Bitcoin Cash address, the amount, and enough BCH to cover the payment plus a small network fee.
- Network fees on Bitcoin Cash are generally less than a cent per transaction. Bitcoin.com charges no fee of its own.
- The recipient sees the payment within seconds. It confirms when the next block is mined, about every ten minutes on average.
- Bitcoin Cash addresses usually start with
bitcoincash:qorbitcoincash:p. Older legacy-format addresses start with 1 or 3, the same as some Bitcoin addresses, which is where most cross-network mistakes begin. - BCH sent to a legacy Bitcoin address you control can usually be recovered. BCH sent to an exchange's Bitcoin deposit address depends on the exchange.
- Confirmed Bitcoin Cash transactions cannot be reversed, so check the address before you send and use a small test payment for large amounts.
- In the Bitcoin.com Wallet, you can also send BCH as a Shareable Link through any messaging app, with no address needed.
How Long It Takes and What It Costs
Sending BCH works the same way as sending Bitcoin, and the practical differences come down to cost and address format.
| Bitcoin Cash (BCH) | Bitcoin (BTC), for comparison | |
|---|---|---|
| Typical network fee | Generally less than a cent | Often a dollar or two, more when the network is busy |
| Time until the recipient sees it | Seconds | Seconds |
| Average time between blocks | About 10 minutes | About 10 minutes |
| Fee choice needed? | Rarely, since blocks are seldom full | Yes, fee level decides how fast it confirms |
| Replace-by-fee to speed up a stuck payment | Not used on Bitcoin Cash | Supported |
| Address format | bitcoincash:q... or p..., or legacy 1 or 3 | 1, 3, bc1q, or bc1p |
Fees are based on how much data a transaction takes up, not on how much you send, so sending $5 and $5,000 costs about the same. Bitcoin Cash blocks are rarely full, so a transaction paying the standard fee is normally included in the next block without any need to choose a speed.
Exchanges and some payment services wait for a set number of confirmations before crediting a deposit, so a payment can be visible on the blockchain well before an exchange balance updates. Each exchange sets its own requirement.
What a Bitcoin Cash Address Looks Like
Most Bitcoin Cash wallets show addresses in CashAddr format, introduced in 2018 to make BCH addresses impossible to confuse with Bitcoin ones:
bitcoincash:pqx5ej6z9cvxc2c7nw5p4s5kf8nzmzc5cqapu8xprq
The same address also exists in the older legacy format, which looks identical to a Bitcoin address:
32uLhn19ZasD5bsVhLdDthhM37JhJHiEE2
Both strings point to exactly the same place on the Bitcoin Cash network, so sending to either one delivers the funds. The legacy format is what makes cross-network mistakes possible, since a string beginning with 1 or 3 could belong to a Bitcoin wallet or a Bitcoin Cash wallet. Token-aware addresses and the other Bitcoin Cash address formats matter mostly to the person receiving, since they choose which format to share.
How to Send Bitcoin Cash in the Bitcoin.com Wallet
You need BCH in your Bitcoin Cash wallet first. If you do not have any, you can buy BCH or swap for it in the app.
- From the home screen, tap Send.
- Select Bitcoin Cash (BCH) as the asset.
- Choose where to send it. You can paste an address, scan a QR code, pick one of your own wallets under My Wallets, or choose Shareable Link.
- If you hold more than one BCH wallet, choose the one to send from under Send from.
- Enter the amount. Tap the arrows next to the amount to switch between BCH and your local currency.
- Review the details. You can tap Add Note to label the payment for your own records.
- Slide the arrow to send.
The payment appears in your transaction history straight away, along with its transaction ID. Pasting that ID into a Bitcoin Cash block explorer shows when it confirms.
Sending Bitcoin Cash from an Exchange
On an exchange, sending is usually called Withdraw. Choose Bitcoin Cash, paste the destination address, enter the amount, and confirm. Check that the network shown is Bitcoin Cash, since some exchanges list several networks or similarly named assets for the same coin.
Exchanges set their own withdrawal fees, which are often higher than the network fee itself, and may hold withdrawals for security checks. A self-custodial wallet sends directly to the network, so you pay only the network fee and choose when the payment goes out.
Sending Bitcoin Cash by Shareable Link
The Bitcoin.com Wallet can also send BCH as a link instead of to an address. You choose Shareable Link at step 3, enter the amount, and share the link through WhatsApp, Telegram, email, or any messaging app. The recipient taps it to claim the BCH, and can install the wallet first if they do not have it. Until they do, you can reclaim the Shareable Link from your transaction history, so a link sent to the wrong person is not lost.
Mistakes to Avoid When Sending BCH
| Mistake | What happens | How to avoid it |
|---|---|---|
| Sending BCH to a Bitcoin address | The BCH lands on the Bitcoin Cash network at an address that may belong to a Bitcoin wallet | Ask the recipient for a bitcoincash: address and confirm they expect BCH |
| Pasting the wrong address | A valid but wrong address receives the funds, and they cannot be pulled back | Check the first and last several characters, and prefer scanning a QR code |
| Clipboard malware | Malware swaps a copied address for the attacker's | Compare the pasted address with the original before sending |
| Choosing the wrong network on an exchange | The withdrawal goes to a different network the recipient may not support | Confirm the network reads Bitcoin Cash |
| Sending a large amount in one go | Any error costs the full amount | Send a small test payment first, confirm it arrives, then send the rest |
Bitcoin Cash payments cannot be reversed once confirmed, so these checks carry more weight than they would with a bank transfer. The same caution applies to anyone asking you to send BCH first to "unlock" a payment or a prize, a pattern common across crypto fraud.
What If You Sent BCH to a Bitcoin Address?
Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash share their history up to 2017, and the same private key controls the same legacy-format address on both networks. BCH sent to a Bitcoin address does not appear in a Bitcoin wallet, but it does exist on the Bitcoin Cash network at that address, and whoever holds the key for that address can usually reach it.
| Where the BCH went | Recoverable? | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| A legacy Bitcoin address (starting with 1) in your own Bitcoin.com Wallet | Yes | If your BTC and BCH wallets share a recovery phrase, the BCH appears automatically. If not, import the BTC wallet's recovery phrase as a Bitcoin Cash wallet |
| A legacy Bitcoin address in another self-custodial wallet you control | Usually | Import that wallet's recovery phrase or private key into a Bitcoin Cash wallet |
| A Bitcoin address starting with 3 | Sometimes | Depends on how the address was created. SegWit-based addresses of this kind are much harder to recover from and may not be recoverable |
A Bitcoin address starting with bc1 | Not possible to send | Bitcoin Cash wallets reject these addresses as invalid |
| An exchange's Bitcoin deposit address | Depends on the exchange | Contact the exchange's support with the transaction ID. Some recover cross-network deposits, often for a fee, and some do not |
For the first case, the Bitcoin.com Wallet's import steps for recovering BCH from a BTC wallet take a few minutes. Import a recovery phrase only into wallet software you trust. A website that asks for your phrase to recover funds is a scam, and the usual rules for protecting a recovery phrase apply in full.
Conclusion
Sending Bitcoin Cash takes an address, an amount, and a few seconds, the same steps behind everyday uses such as paying merchants and friends in BCH. Fees are generally less than a cent, the recipient sees the payment almost immediately, and it confirms with the next block about ten minutes later. The one area that needs care is the address itself. Ask for a CashAddr address beginning with bitcoincash:, check it after pasting, and test large transfers with a small amount first. If BCH does end up at a Bitcoin address, it is often recoverable by whoever holds that address's key.
