Here come the bitcoin babies
Bitcoin will have two upcoming forks and a few days ago when BTC was still at 4600 below, that was the perfect time to get in on the party. That was exactly what people did hence raising the price to an ATH of 5660 and even upwards on some exchanges. Bitmex boasted the biggest volume followed by Bitfinex.
Bitcoin value not only reached all time high, but the ATH value was around 20% higher than what it was and all that happened in 1-2 days. Total market cap increased by more than 10% in two days. Last October 12, it rose from estimated 156 to 165 Billion and October 13 it rose from 165 to 173 Billion. Also, the Bitcoin dominance rose from 48% to 54% which suggests that most new capital influx in the market is indeed used to buy bitcoin or most altcoin sells are traded to get more BTC. But why the demand at such proportions?
Simple, Free money!
The Bitcoin CASH fork was a successful one and people received their 1:1 ratios in Bitcoin Cash. Meaning, if you had 1 BTC at the time of the fork you would receive 1 Bitcoin Cash as well. This is the same principle that would permeate throughout the two upcoming forks and also the for all the incoming Bitcoin forks throughout its lifetime.
Here is a lowdown between the two upcoming forks:
| October 25, 2017 | November 2017 |
|---|---|
| Bitcoin Gold | SegWit2x |
| Proposed by developers, miners and a number of key contributors including Jack Liao, the CEO of LightningAsic. Bitcoin Gold uses a different mining algorithm called Equihash which is ASIC chips resistant. GPUs will be used to mine Bitcoin Gold instead of Bitcoin’s current Asics mining machines, which have been blamed for the centralization of Bitcoin. Bitcoin Gold will also adjust the level of difficulty of solving a block which Bitcoin is experiencing every two weeks. | A code optimization proposed by Digital Currency Group (DCG). It would play the long-proposed Segregated Witness (SegWit), which modifies the way some data is stored on the network. It would increase the network's block size from 1 MB today to 2MB to be triggered about three months after the SegWit activation. |
My hunch is that if ever the Bitcoin Gold happens, the value of BTG won't be as successful as opposed to Bitcoin cash (peaked at 900 usd per 1 Bitcoin cash) simply due to having a very low almost zero usecase. The segwit2x fork however is much more serious and has a higher chance of implementation. However, it is also an attempt from big key players in Bitcoin to deviate from the consensus and create their own currency that may not be compatible with the old bitcoin. This scalability solution, although temporary, will have the power to benefit the business of their supporters as well as the power to overrun the old Bitcoin.
But still, in a trader's point of view... the gains you will get does not equal to 2x returns. It is free money but...
The funny thing about Bitcoin currently is that it is fighting a losing battle against a very big enemy which is the world of altcoins. The only thing keeping it alive is that most people still don't know about other cryptocurrencies and most likely have heard the term Bitcoin a couple times more against the terms "altcoins" or "cryptocurrencies" in general. People who are not informed at all will most likely think that Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency around and for them cryptocurrency trading is simply Bitcoin trading. Asides from the losing battle, BTC is currently being crippled internally in a fight against its forks. It is a sad ending for Bitcoin (The real bitcoin not a fork) as its final defenses are being eaten up from within.
At the end of the rainbow
Traders really should not join into this type of drama. Traders also should not have any favorite cryptocurrency at all and should not feel sad if they sold all their holdings of their "fave" crypto for massive gains. In the end what matters more is solidified profit and not false hope.
