'Bitcoin Cash' Winner or Loser?

It happened, it forked! Bitcoin split into two separate cryptocurrencies; Bitcoin (BTC) and Bitcoin Cash (BCC/ BCH). This is old news now, we are past Aug 1st now, and the aftermath continues to unfold.

To say the least, chaos was rampant, as most exchanges held off on BCC deposits/ withdrawal since the fork, up until late afternoon yesterday (3rd August). As all BTC holders were credited with an equal amount of BCC and were advised as the smart move to keep their money in external wallets and not on the exchanges, they couldn't access or trade their new currency, how ironic! People who have left their Bitcoins in exchanges were the lucky minority who were able to sell their BCC at its high at around $750. The rest were taking to social media in search for answers as to why exchanges are holding on to their funds, when they would be able to access them and most of all when they would be able to DUMP them in order to invest in other Alt Coins and in Bitcoin itself, all worrying that by the time the major exchanges open BCC up for business it's value would have dropped and be near to worthless.

The only exchange that was accepting BCC deposits and withdrawals was HitBTC; a major Chinese platform. As BCC was traded only on this exchange and being sold/ dumped there, this caused a steep variance in price between BCC on the different exchanges, HitBTC's price of course significantly lower, hitting around $180 at its lowest, while the price on Bittrex (one of the larger crypto exchanges) was around $700 at the same time, making an astounding difference of around $500 in the price of the SAME coin. Kraken, another large exchange soon followed and accepted BCC deposits/ withdrawals, but listed them under the BCH ticker and on average BCH was priced $100 Lower than BCC on Bittrex. With majorly varying prices and different ticker names, Bitcoin Cash caused a ton of confusion and uncertainty. Even affecting another coin BitConnect using the same ticker BCC, causing it a major drop in price! Hilarious! It seems that the community is so divided to the point that they can't even come to an agreement on a name. The newest circulating label for the coin is Bcash and it seems to be picking up heat on twitter, adopted by major crypto influencers like @whalepanda, @petertoddbtc, @tonevays and @excellion to name a few. Yes, some do think it is ridiculously stupid!

With most exchanges now open for business, and people rushing to dump their BCC. BCC's price has seen a slow and steady decrease and is at $271.52 on Bittrex as of this post. The reason for the slow decrease is that transactions need 20 confirmations on Bittrex, which is taking up to 24 hours due to the current low mining power/ hashrate (it's interesting to note that on HitBTC, they need only 2 confirmations). Bitcoin Cash Network Difficulty has been adjusted and is now decreasing, resulting in quicker block times and making it easier for miners to produce more blocks. The price is predicted (by a majority) to keep dropping, some even anticipate the $100 mark by 8th August, the day Segwit actually activates on BTC. All the while, BTC price has risen slightly to $2850.73 as of this post.

The price drop of BCC has a very logical explanation, and is largely down to people trying to get the best value for their money, fearing it will drop, as it's still a new coin, and at the end of the day arguably an ALT coin. Also, due to people wanting to invest in Alt coins as they dropped in price, affected by the whole BTC drama. This is probably expected and even part of the plan. The real test is when it actually hits it's low, maybe even less than $100? What is going to happen? It is highly likely it will skyrocket again and even surpass BTC's value. There is an argument that BCC is completely decentralised; just look at its core Development team, seems to just be 2 guys? Except it isn't, but that's just how "decentralised" looks like, compared to that of BTC which is a whole bunch of people, argued to be a centralised team. Is that the true vision behind the original concept? Fact remains that technically, BCC has more to offer; higher ledger storage space, faster and more secure transactions. Will that trump BTC's cult like following? Could it be that BCC will go even more mainstream and gain even more following, it's certainly equipped to do so! BCC has strong leadership and backing, not to mention big miner support, so there are quite a few traders waiting for the big dip in order to secure their buy in positions, believing that it is going to be THE cryptocurrency of 2018.