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Will Bitcoin Cash lower (or change) its 10 minute block time?

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Update: August 2026

A previous version of this article answered emphatically "No." However, things have changed. BitcoinCashAutist's March 2025 CHIP proposal suggesting a change in blocktimes to 1 minute has become a popular topic of discussion. As of August 2026, it is being strongly considered & debated by the community for potential lock-in in November 2026 or November 2027 (go live May 2027 or May 2028).

This is the CHIP process in action. If a better idea can be demonstrated to the BCH community, and with enough discussion to form consensus on an upgrade, then the network can be upgraded.

Jeremy (host of The BCH Podcast) is one of the strong advocates for this proposal, having been convinced of its merits himself. Nevertheless, this article of course provides a point of view giving credence to both sides.

Read up on the arguments on both sides and then jump into the discussion for yourself!

Maybe.

Satoshi originally decided the 10 minute blocktime as a "good enough" compromise between user experience (faster confirmations is better) and miner centralisation / orphan risk (slower confirmations is better). Since 2009, a tremendous amount has changed in the landscape of computer infrastructure, the market of competing cryptocurrencies, the payments alternatives prompting user expectations and more.

To address this issue, some BCH community members believe the blocktime can be lowered to 1 minute. Others believe the status quo of 10 minutes is sufficient. This is being discussed as part of CHIP process.

CHIP discussion can happen anywhere, but some key resources for learning more about this topic:

Livestream timestamped to Calin's talk, 2:32:50.

Arguments For​

Advocates of the proposal have a variety of benefits they believe make any risks worthwhile, including:

  • Faster confirmation times for 1 conf services
  • Lowered variance for multi-conf services
  • Improved UI from the "loading bar effect"
  • Improved payments integration when transitioning from DeFi products
  • Improved stability in the Difficulty Adjustment Algorithm and mempool fees
  • Better adaptability for future decreases (or increases) in BCH block time in response to changing network conditions

The best place to find out about these is to read the CHIP document itself.

Arguments Against​

Skeptics of the proposal have a variety of reasons for opposition including:

  • Risk of mining centralisation via increased block propagation pressure
  • Increased burden on nodes and SPV providers from increased block headers
  • Low necessity (slow confirmations is not a problem, either for them personally or the community at large)
  • Implementation risks (any change creates risk, especially something touching a lot of the node codebase)
  • Insufficient solution (1 minutes might be faster, but perhaps still not fast enough. Prefer 0 conf.)
  • Originalism, 10 minutes was chosen by Satoshi and is a part of the real Bitcoin

The best place to hear about criticisms is to join the Bitcoin Cash Research thread or BCH Telegram and discuss directly with skeptics.