Since a couple of days rumor has it, that there will be another hard fork of Bitcoin at the end of October. So with Bitcoin Gold, there could be another cryptocurrency bearing the Bitcoin name.
This of course begs the question, of what would happen to the price of bitcoin and alt-coins, if the next hard fork becomes reality.
I see a couple of scenarios that are more or less likely to occur. Here they are:
Scenario 1: the value of Bitcoin shoots up, while alt-coins dive
Many newbies (including myself) have learned one thing with the Bitcoin Cash-fork: a hard fork means, that you're going to have the same amount of coins on the new blockchain, as you had on the "original" blockchain.
So for example having 5 Bitcoin before the Bitcoin Cash-fork, would have given you 5 coins of Bitcoin Cash for free.
Now the same thing would happen if there was another hard fork.
Smart traders will therefore clear their alt-coin positions before the next fork, so that they'll have as many Bitcoins as possible in their wallet.
This will have two consequences:
- The price of Bitcoin rises
- The price of alt-coins drop
Probability of 70%
Scenario 2: the price of Bitcoin dives
As with the Bitcoin Cash-fork, there will be a lot of FUD concerning Bitcoin's future.
This in turn will cause traders to go back into fiat and wait for the storm to calm down.
Accordingly, the price of Bitcoin will take a dive as it did in June-July (from $3'000 to $1'850)
Probability of 50%
Scenario 3: not much is going to happen
As some think, the importance of the Bitcoin Gold-project appears up for debate.
Given that Bitcoin Cash produced an ultimately smaller Bitcoin network, not to mention a cryptocurrency that's worth about 12 percent as much as Bitcoin, most seem to view the plan as a mere distraction.
For one, bitcoin gold looks like it could be even smaller that bitcoin cash, at least in that not as many miners seem to support it.
As a consequence, most investors will think that it was not worth the risk to settle from alt-coins to Bitcoin, just to get some free Bitcoin Gold, whose value might be considerably lower and that of Bitcoin Cash.
So in this scenario, we don't expect to see big trading-volumes and price-fluctuations
Probability of 40%
Scenario 4: Bitcoin goes slightly up, while alt-coins dive
This scenario is a combination of scenario 1 and 2. Personally I think this is the most probable scenario.
I think that there will certainly be some traders that are trying to make gains from the new free coins and therefore causing Bitcoin's price to rise.
On the other hand there will also be more risk averse traders selling their BTC and alt-coins for fiat money, causing the price of Bitcoin and alt-coins to drop.
When it comes to the price of Bitcoin, the behavior of risk seeking and risk averse traders is neutralizing each other and causing the price to be more or less the same.
When it comes to the price of alt-coins however, both risk seeking and risk adverse traders are selling their alt-coins, which causes the price to dive.
Probability of 80%