“I don’t need your Civil War…” – Axl Rose
Today analysts are still paying a lot of attention to the prospects for Bitcoin Cash as this cryptocurrency gets ready to potentially take a hard fork into two competing coins, Bitcoin ABC and Bitcoin SV.
Disagreements over block size limits and the furor over Craig Steven Wright who some call “fakeToshi” contributed to this turning point in the road, where it’s anything but clear which side of the Bitcoin Cash argument will win.
Some analysts are taking their own polls and getting significant support for both sides. Others suggest reasons for price movements within the past month.
“If the major exchanges are accommodating the fork, potentially millions of traders will have access to BCH buying and will just need to wait a little for their wait for the free coins, and, as such, a wave of demand was triggered by the news,” writes Sebastian Sinclair today at Coindesk. “Since many notable cryptocurrency exchanges announced support for the fork, a few have even launched futures contract-like trading for future blockchains that could be created as a result of the split, which essentially act as placeholders until the fork is complete.”
This jump based on exchanges is interesting, because the exchanges seem to favor the status quo with Bitcoin ABC. If that’s the case, that side is sure to win – right?
Not so fast. Recent activity shows that lots of minors prefer Bitcoin SV, and that proponents of this offshoot are prepared to mount a campaign to defend its popularity.
By this time next week, we’ll know a lot more, but for now, analysts like Philakone are coming up with their own predictions and even crowdsourcing some ideas about what will happen.
Philakone’s twitter poll asks whether ABC will go to zero, or whether SV will tank in the face of a big Bitcoin Cash rally.
Elsewhere, coverage of the controversy at NewsBTC shows a trader known as “crypto Rand” suggesting a partial selloff and other strategic trades to hedge against anything weird going on.
In some ways, this new Bitcoin Cash hard fork is a great textbook study of the idea of hard forks in general. People often have trouble with the idea that a cryptocurrency will morph into two opposing factions – and just exactly how that will happen.
It’s hard to really understand the nuts and bolts of it until you’ve seen it happen, especially in a way that is blatant and controversial instead of based on an esoteric detail. But traders who are paying attention this week will get a front row seat.
