The looming hard fork of Bitcoin Cash has seen the coin’s price gain over 40 percent in the past week. The trend is expected to continue until the fork takes place which will be on November 15.
Reason For The Peak In Price
A hard fork results in the creation of a second chain and token. So, the price increase is not surprising given that whenever a fork is about to happen to a major cryptocurrency, there is increased demand for the coin. It’s usually because the investors of the original chain are rewarded with the newly created crypto based on 1:1 ratio.
Major Boost From Top Crypto Exchanges
The price action has also received a boost from the announcements made by Binance and Coinbase. The two exchanges have promised to support the forked token.
Meanwhile, one of the leading crypto wallet providers, Ledger has promised to support the dominant chain after the fork. It means the fork with the most hashing power and also the highest levels of stability.
Now the anticipation of the upcoming fork has seen the volume of Bitcoin cash increase sevenfold. Data from coinmarketcap.com shows BCH over the past one week it has gone from less than $200 million to $1.4 billion.
The upcoming fork is somewhat different from the usual bi-annual upgrades. This is because there is a competing proposal which is not compatible with the original roadmap of BCC from bitcoincash.org.
When it comes to cryptocurrency blockchains, the decisions are made by miners depending on the mining power they control. So, if a miner can gain majority support for a proposal, it’s the direction the cryptocurrency blockchain will move in.
Bitcoin ABC which is the most used Bitcoin cash client has suggested a non-scheduled change to BCC. It claims that the upgrade will make the network more scalable and usable. Also, it will open the doors for non-cash transactions to happen on the Bitcoin cash blockchain. However, Bitcoin ABC wants to keep the block size at 32 MB.
Bitcoin ABC has the support of Bitmain, one of the main crypto miners based in China. The mining giant has around 18 percent of Bitcoin cash mining power.
The competing proposal is from nChain. The company wants to avoid canonical transactions and also raise the block size to 128 MB. nChain has the support of Coingeek, a U.S based company with 21 percent of BCC mining power.
These two camps with opposing ideas are trying to garner more support from the rest of the other main bitcoin cash miners and pools.
Basil has three years of freelance experience writing on disruptive technologies. He focuses on breaking news and education pieces; helping to spread the gospel of Blockchain. He hopes to have his own blockchain company one day; helping the world through its innovative ledger technology.
