The price of Bitcoin Cash (BCH) surged by more than 15.5% in the past 24 hours – most likely due to the anticipation of the upcoming hard fork on the 15th of November, as well as the support announced by popular exchanges.
Bitcoin Cash Price Surges
The price of Bitcoin Cash (BCH) surged by over 15.5% overnight in anticipation of the upcoming hard fork. What also possibly fueled the upward momentum are the announcements by exchanges like Binance and Coinbase that they intend to support the fork.
However, the announcement by Binance does not clarify whether they intend to support both the chains or only the one that emerges with majority hash rate. Coinbase in its announcement claimed that it would support the one published on bitcoincash.org but would credit the users account with both coins in case two chains emerge.
BCH as part of its routine upgrade carries out a hard fork every six months. However, the upcoming hard fork on November 15 is different as the developers have failed to arrive at a consensus over the upgrades. The possibility of the BCH blockchain being split into two chains looms large if both factions go their own way.
At the time of writing the price of BCH is hovering around $532.18 according to CoinMarketCap.
What’s the Fuss About This Hard Fork?
It is ironical that Bitcoin Cash, which itself forked off the Bitcoin blockchain last August over differences of how to address the scalability issues, finds itself in a similar situation this time.
Differences have cropped within the BCH community over which changes to the protocol code should become part of the upcoming upgrade. Both sides (Bitcoin ABC supported by Bitmain and Craig Wright’s nChain) will proceed with their proposed updates and possibly result in splitting the chain further.
But Why the Price Increase?
In case of a chain split, which fork the exchanges and wallets will support depends upon which chain the miners decide to mine. Many hard forks which don’t find enough miners willing to support them gradually die.
The upcoming BCH fork is interestingly poised now with one side having close to 22.3% and the other with a 25.4% hash rate. The remaining 52% is fractioned, so one does not know which chain they will support.
With the above situation, there is a good possibility that both the chains may survive and that’s where investors see an opportunity to make some free money. Investors who hold their BCH in exchanges who will support both chains will get an equal number of coins on both blockchains.
And that’s why many traders usually buy into a cryptocurrency that is expected to be split into two different chains.
However, since many exchanges may not be upfront in clarifying whether they would support both chains, a better option for investors is to move their coins to a wallet where they are in control of their private keys. Post the chain split they can claim their assets on the other chain.
If both the chains of BCH survive, this hard fork may prove to be an excellent opportunity for traders and investors to make some free money in the existing bear market.
In case both the chains forked off BCH survive, which fork would you support? Let us know in the comments below.
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