Bitcoin Cash Hard Fork : Price Swings and the Aftermath

It only seems like a couple of days ago that we were all huddled  around our computer screens in nervous anticipation. The countdown tickers onscreen marked the inexorable march towards an event that could change the world. Fingernails were being bitten down to bloody stumps, until finally… zero hour!

So much has happened since then that… What? It was only a couple of days ago! Oh, so did anything happen?

Not Immediately

The alotted time came and went, but there were no signs of any action. So we kept waiting. Twenty minutes later we got confirmation that the split had occurred. But that didn’t make much difference. So we kept waiting.

Half an hour after that we heard that Bitcoin Cash balances had become active on the Bittrex exchange.

It seemed like everyone we knew wanted to dump BCC, but the rush to do so meant that it was next to impossible to access any service by which that was possible.

The quoted price was fluctuating between $420 and $214, but at that stage, we still didn’t really have anything solid to base this market value on.

Bitcoin Was Doing Just Fine, BTW

A lack of hash-power and the refusal of blocks under 1MB in size meant that the Bitcoin Cash blockchain was stubbornly refusing to move. However, while this was going on (or not going on), the Bitcoin blockchain just kept pottering along as though nothing had happened. Because of course, it hadn’t.

So we kept waiting.

Could This Bitcoin Cash Thing Fall at the First Hurdle?

And we kept waiting. Several hours later we got confirmation that the first BCC blocks had been mined. And then the pump began.

Prices surged, at one point topping $750. But we still couldn’t identify any real human beings who had been able to sell. Certainly, many Bitcoinist staffers were desperately asking where it was possible, but all avenues seemed to be blocked.

Site access was crashing under the weight of logins, wallets were “down for maintenance”, and exchanges were telling us all just to calm down until they could ascertain BCC’s viability.

The Aftermath

The price came back down but has remained between $300 and $500, which is pretty impressive really. The value of your Bitcoin plus your Bitcoin Cash is more than the value of your Bitcoin alone used to be. Nobody can complain about free money.

Bitcoin prices dropped very slightly just prior to the split, but all that did was correct the slight surge it had experienced in the days leading up to it. It’s now holding pretty steady (in bitcoin terms) at around the $2750 mark. Back to a sustainable growth value.

Here at Bitcoinist Towers we are still trying (and failing) to sell. Confirmations are taking around two hours and are expected to continue at this rate for the next three months until the hashing difficulty is recalibrated.

What Happens Now?

Well, we may see another boost in interest if miners don’t follow through with the 2MB block size increase to Bitcoin Classic (don’t make me call it that) in November.

Other than that, whether BCC steadies or drops out of sight depends on how many people get behind it. For now, it is holding its own. It is still the fourth biggest cryptocurrency by market cap, so maybe now isn’t yet the time to bet against it.

The only other thing that remains to be seen is whether Coinbase can get back a decent percentage of the customers who left in droves after their decision not to support the new token. Perhaps not a great idea, for a company looking for a new round of investment.

How did you fare after the hard fork? Were you able to sell your Bitcoin Cash or are you holding on to it? Let us know in the comments below.

Images courtesy of ViaBTC, Twitter