A turnaround in the cryptocurrency markets over the past ten days has many hoping that this is a sign of better things to come following a few months of significant declines.
Bitcoin Cash was the main winner of this recent bullish run, with gains of more than 100%.
Bitcoin Cash was created via a hard fork from the main Bitcoin network in August 2017. A significant portion of the Bitcoin community was unhappy with the large transactions costs and slow processing times that were crippling the digital currency.
The network has long had scalability issues and they were massively exposed as the amount of transactions through the Bitcoin network grew exponentially in 2017.
Many in the community felt that Bitcoin was straying from the original vision of what this cryptocurrency would be –a low-cost and fast medium of exchange. This is why Bitcoin Cash was spawned.
This new network has ultra-low transaction costs and very fast processing times due to the max block size being 8 MB compared to the 1 MB seen on the Bitcoin network.
Many Bitcoin Cash enthusiasts hoped they would exchange places with Bitcoin in terms of adoption and market position, but this has failed to materialize. Now they are focusing on becoming the most effective medium of exchange for everyday payments, something that Bitcoin is not very efficient at.
There is a hard fork on the horizon for Bitcoin Cash on May 15 which will see the block size increase even further, from 8 MB up to 32 MB. The reason for this hard fork is down to the developers wanting to keep improving this digital currency as a medium of exchange.
They want it to be even more scalable, reliable, maintain ultra-low fees and prepare itself for wide scale adoption.
There will also be some original Bitcoin code reactivated during this hard fork including opcode called ‘OP_GROUP’ which could open up the Bitcoin Cash network to being able to create tokens in a similar fashion to ERC20 tokens on the Ethereum network.
If this is successful, it would surely see a significant rise in value for the network and there are other opcodes which could pave the way for the creation of smart contracts.
Another key part of the fork is upping the upper turn size to 220 bytes from 40 bytes that means more data can be then added to the blockchain.
On the 1st of August 2017, the day of the launch, the price of Bitcoin Cash was $380.01, with Bitcoin being $2,718.26.
For the first couple of months there was a slight decline in the price of Bitcoin Cash, hovering around the $360 mark. It then began to uptrend strongly, following the widespread bull market.
Eventually, the price topped out at $4,091.70 on the 20th of December. Since that high, it underwent a steady decline, bottoming out at $606.59 on April 6.
Between April 11 and April 24, there was a shift in the Bitcoin Cash price, with a steady uptick leading to short-term high of $1,539.28 before falling back somewhat on Wednesday morning to $1,300.
This drop is probably due to some investors cashing in a portion of their short-term profits following the 160% rise that has been witnessed since April 1st. With the hard fork upcoming, it is widely expected that Bitcoin Cash will see further growth in the coming days and weeks.
Following a ten-day bull run, the overall market is bleeding on Wednesday morning.
There has been a lot of controversy surrounding the network since it was first started and many believe this has been weighing down its progress:
A key flash point occurred during November when there was a brief price spike to $2,500 and then a sharp decline towards $1,000, all in a 48 hour time period. Notable cryptocurrency figures Gavin Andresen and Roger Ver were loudly praising Bitcoin Cash on Twitter in advance of this crash.
Most tweets, however, are made in pure jubilation over records highs. Most pump-and-dump schemes tend not to broadcast their movement publicly. There’s no indication either of these two figures had any nefarious intentions behind their tweets.
Still, a lot of people in the community believed that this sharp price movement resulted from a pump-and-dump scheme.
Conspiracies, lack of information, and experience being burned has led many crypto users into feeling knee-deep in Bitcoin Cash FUD.
There was further controversy when Bitcoin Cash trading was halted on Coinbase due to insider trading allegations. It is believed that someone acted on insider information that Bitcoin Cash was going to be added to Coinbase to make profitable trades.
The latest controversy came just days ago when the Bitmain subsidiary, Antpool was accused of boosting the digital currency’s value artificially.
On Friday they announced the burning of 12% of all of the mining rewards for Bitcoin Cash.
They were saying this move would further strengthen the network. Many in the crypto community believe Antpool were trying to manipulate the price of Bitcoin Cash through this announcement.
Antpool miners currently confirm approximately 8.2% of all Bitcoin Cash transactions.
Certain circles have pointed towards increased Bitcoin Cash trading activity in South Korea as being a catalyst for this growth, whereas others believe it is a sign of a widespread market recovery.
Certainly, the upcoming hard fork will have played a part in the price rise, with a lot of optimism abound regarding the potential of this hard fork.
There are also ongoing concerns with scalability in the Bitcoin network, something which Bitcoin Cash have addressed. Only 3-4 transactions per second can be made on the Bitcoin network, with an average of 61 transactions per second taking place on the Bitcoin Cash network. This number will also rise significantly with the upcoming fork.
It is clear that the developers behind Bitcoin Cash are extremely passionate about the network and are hard at work to ensure that it continues to grow and gain more widespread adoption.
While it has its fair share of controversies, Bitcoin Cash looks to be here to stay. With a momentous hard fork on the horizon, it will not be surprising to see investors reap the benefits through significant price movement in the coming months.
When you are dealing with a cold storage hardware wallet like the CoolWallet S, you will have no issues with your Bitcoin Cash being compromised once you keep it in a safe place.
This is the perfect mobile cold storage hardware wallet for your Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, Ripple, and Bitcoin Cash with other coins or tokens supported soon. It is convenient to use and your funds are kept extremely safe.
What makes it stand out from other hardware wallets, aside from its sleek design and quality security features, is that it is the very first mobile hardware wallet.
While other wallets are immobile and have a lengthy setup procedure, the CoolWallet S simplifies the entire process.
Rather than utilizing a USB port, like every other hardware wallet, transactions on the CoolWallet S are completed utilizing encrypted Bluetooth technology.
If you are serious about your Bitcoin Cash security, a cold storage hardware wallet is an essential purchase, saving you a lot of time, money, and stress in the process.
