By the end of the day Tuesday, bitcoin cash had carved out close to a $7 billion position for itself on the cryptocurrency landscape.
Bitcoin, meanwhile, lost 5.46% and was the only one of the top 10 cryptos to lose Tuesday, as bitcoin miners completed a split to create more of the new, split-off coin called bitcoin cash.
Source: coinmarketcap.com
Prior to the Tuesday’s launch of a user-activated hard fork (UAHF) to create bitcoin cash, the ViaBTC exchange enabled traders to trade bitcoin cash futures under the symbol BCC by temporarily freezing their BTC balances on the platform.
From July 24 to 25, the value of bitcoin cash futures hovered around $500. By the 26th, it had fallen to $400, then below $300 on July 31. On Monday, it declined 24% against bitcoin, bringing its value to about $278 according to coinmarketcap.com.
Bitcoin Cash Rebounds
But the price rebounded by 10:30 ET Tuesday to $373.78, giving it a market cap of $6.764 billion. BCH posted a 27.63-point gain in the last 24 hours as of 10:30 p.m. ET, making it the fourth largest cryptocurrency behind bitcoin, Ethereum and Ripple. (Coinmarketcap.com initially listed bitcoin cash as BCC, but has switched to BCH.)
The creators of bitcoin cash believe support for Segregated Witness was a mistake – and a diversion from Satoshi Nakamoto’s vision for bitcoin – and they aim to help bitcoin scale by immediately increasing the block size from 1 MB to 8 MB.
Trading in bitcoin cash was available on several exchanges, but remained a fraction of bitcoin’s price.
The BCH/BTC price on Bittrex, which accounted for 42.19% of BCC’s volume, was $516.29 at 10:30 p.m. ET Tuesday, the highest of any cryptocurrency exchange, followed by $350.66 on Kraken, which held 16.88% of BCH volume.
Coinmarketcap.com listed BCH as the second biggest crypto gainer in the last 24 hours, second only to OperaCoin, which posted a 304.76 point gain. (OperaCoin only transacted $27,991 in the 24-hour period.)
BCH Must Prove Itself
Amaury Sechet, lead developer for bitcoin cash, said it will have to prove itself over time. The current price may seem low, Sechet said, but it has really received a lot of support.
Because bitcoin cash is forking the bitcoin blockchain, most bitcoin holders will receive an equal number of bitcoin cash. As long as holders control the private keys of their bitcoin wallet – or have coins on an exchange that has pledged support for bitcoin cash – holders will be able to claim their bitcoin cash. If coins are on an exchange that opposes bitcoin cash – such as Coinbase – there is a good chance they will not receive them.