Big news for today: ViaBTC, Chinese Bitcoin exchange/mine will fork off and create their own version of Bitcoin.
Key points:
- the new coin will be named Bitcoin Cash
- so far it is only supported by the Chinese ViaBTC
- you can only trade Bitcoin Cash with Chinese currency (CNY)
- you can already trade it on ViaBTC, even though not a single coin has been mined yet
- Bitcoin Cash is now worth 1/8 of Bitcoin
- ViaBTC in the same time is still signalling for SegWit
On August 1st Bitcoin Cash will appear on ViaBTC users wallets but they won't be able to withdraw it - the ViaBTC exchange will decide when they will be able to.
ViaBTC is a Chinese exchange and pool that controls about 5% of Bitcoin hashrate (source].
They are often connected with Roger Ver, well known bitcoin big block advocate (big blocks idea stand in opposition to SegWit).
Now, I've stated numerous times that in my opinion there won't be a Bitcoin split - it would lower the price and everybody would just loose money. I didn't take into account that the split doesn't have to be supported by large number of Bitcoin entities, such as exchanges and pools. In fact, anyone can create his own Bitcoin - it's an open source project but whether anyone wants to buy it is a different matter.
As it seems, one Chinese exchange, taking advantage of the current situation, decided to create it's own version of Bitcoin. Of course they state, that they received numerous inquiries from miners and users asking them about support for the new Bitcoin. If you check https://www.reddit.com/r/btc/ - the central hub for bitcoin big blocks enthusiast, they indeed seem to be very happy about the new version of Bitcoin.
In my opinion - China is testing if they can do their own Bitcoin. They don't want to start from scratch, they want that Bitcoin trademark so they'll start from here. Of course Chinese Bitcoin market is very centralized (Bitmain, they main provider of Bitcoin mining devices is also owner of ViaBTC) so it looks weird, that only one exchange/pool is joining the initiative. Maybe they are testing the waters? They know that splitting Bitcoin will bring panic sell and prices down. So they kinda announce it using one small exchange and see what happens. Do people join? Or just ignore it?
Very soon we'll find out as people are already trading Bitcoin Cash - you can see it here:
https://www.viabtc.com/quot/realtime?currency=cny&dest=bcc&chart=simple
It will be super interesting to see how the price behaves after the fork.
So is it good or bad? Both - soon you will probably see news like "Bitcoin split, panic, sell!" and the price might tank quite hard. On the other hand - we've got competition now. And competition is always good, especially for the customers. I'm betting on the SegWit Bitcoin, but that's just me. In my opinion people will largely ignore the China Bitcoin and it will be either forgotten or be worth 1/100 of "normal" Bitcoin.
Will keep you updated!
ViaBTC Bitcoin Cash announcement: https://www.viabtc.com/convert/bcc
