This is a tale of two Bitcoins. After a fork in August that created Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCH), we have reached yet another crossroad. While another hardfork was planned around middle of November to boost Bitcoin’s block size, this fork is now dead in the water. The lack of consensus among the Bitcoin community was cited as the reason for abandoning the so-called SegWit2x plan.
Abandoning the fork lifted the Bitcoin price from $7,200 to $7,800 as traders realized their worst fears (an ugly chain split) would be avoided. However, excitement hasn’t lasted. Bitcoin is now trading at around $6,000 at press time, as traders and investors fear that SegWit by itself will not create enough capacity to scale. Indeed, at the time of this writing, there are over 140,000 unconfirmed Bitcoin transactions.
Bitcoin Cash was the surprise winner in all of this, at least temporarily. The currency which had been drifting steadily downward was lifted as high as $2,600 in a dramatic pump following the news of SegWit2x’s cancellation. While the price has since experienced a 50% retrace, spectators were stunned at the sudden rise.
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