The cost of bitcoin on Thursday morning, November 15, has already decreased by more than 10%, reaching a minimum since October 2017, while the largest altcoins lost in price up to 15%, by the time of writing.
According to the CoinMarketCap portal, which calculates the average price on more than 20 exchanges, as of 12.15pm (GMT), bitcoin (Bitcoin: BITCOIN) decreased by 12.13%, to $5.521. At the Binance Exchange, the largest in terms of trading in cryptocurrencies, bitcoin is trading at $5.500
Other popular cryptocurrencies are becoming even cheaper: ETH (BITFINEX: ETH/USD.BITFINEX) went down by 12.67% and is currently trading against $175.8. Yesterday evening the coin was replaced from the second place by market capitalization. Currently, XRP coin (BITFINEX: XRP/USD) that went down by 8.87%, to $0.454 managed to replace ETH and continues to stay second.
Bitcoin Cash cryptocurrency (EXANTE: BCH.EXANTE) that was recently showing good results prior to the hard fork set for today has lost 8.95% and is trading at $438.50.
According to CoinMarketCap, the cryptocurrency market capitalization currently stands at $181.38 billion. Despite the drop caused by the first crypto, bitcoin accounts for about 52.9% of the total cryptocurrency market.
“The market had been entering a wedge, with the volatility so low,” said Charlie Hayter, Cryptocompare website founder said in London, referring a technical chart pattern. “What you are seeing low is a breakout on the downside. Sometimes when things happen, it takes a while for the true reason to become clear - an exchange trade or regulatory action,” he continued.
Today it became known that around $670 million worth BTC has just moved from the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges Binance and Bitfinex in single transactions.
First 109,234.33 BTC ($619 million) were moved to an unknown wallet from Binance and another 10,000 BTC (59 million USD) followed later from Bitfinex.
The timing of such a whale movement is noteworthy as almost $1,000 of value has been shaved off from bitcoin in the last 24 hours only.
Crypto community speculates about these transactions. It could be the exchanges themselves moving BTC to their cold storages, or someone out there is buying in bitcoin while it is floored. This also brings up the topic which Stepan earlier this week mentioned in his blog; Whales, getting ready, knowing something which we don’t know.
The bitcoin price drop was predicted recently by the CEO of Bitmex exchange. Arthur Hayes thinks that contrary to the popular belief, bitcoin requires volatility if it ever gets universal acceptance and the price of bitcoin is the best and most transparent way to report the health of an ecosystem since it informs the world that something is happening, regardless of whether it is positive or negative.
For the last month bitcoin was surprising with the low volatility index it showed despite the last 24h surge it is still standing at 0.73% for the previous 30 days.
It is difficult to make any conclusions or predictions about the price in the perspective of a month or more, but analysts even before the collapse in the market noted that the current situation resembles what happened in 2014, or the so-called "death cross". It appears when the gap between the moving average bitcoin rate indicating the medium-term trend and the two-hundred-day moving average is minimal or absent.
The only coins that remained relatively unaffected in the current bearish trend are the stablecoins. Designed to create a soft buffer during the unexpected market volatility stablecoins that are backed by fiat currencies in a 1:1 ratio. In such situations they are proving their worth according to the CEO & Founder at STASIS Gregory Klumov.
“At the bear market, stablecoins must absorb the extra demand and keep their price stable due to their market power and community adoption. Regarding EURS stable coin and yesterday’s crypto prices drop, we expected the trading volume in EURS pairs to double at HitBTC.Besides, the users of our wallet purchased all the ETH we offered within the exchange option at the moment of the price drop. This is the exact usecase of a stable coin, when you can move in and out of crypto very quickly, following the market trends,” he said in the comment to IHodl.com
Bitcoin Cash to be Blamed?
Some analysts believe that the current fall of the whole crypto market is caused by the imminent introduction of Bitcoin Cash hard forks, it will result with a new protocol, and two individual cryptocurrencies- Bitcoin ABC and Bitcoin SV to be created.
Over the past two weeks, the price of BCH was showing relative growth raising from a $425 mark on November 2 and reaching its peak of $636 per coin on November 7. Then the coin started to lose its value. Yesterday evening Bitcoin Cash (BCH) dropped by more than 20%. The cryptocurrency was quite volatile because it reached and lost 50% of its value in just a few days.
Analysts think that the problem that caused it is in the base of the conflict. The cracks in the community are bad for the reputation and for the trust people are showing to the coin. Previously, Bitcoin Cash has recommended itself as a faster and more “fair” alternative to the first crypto. It was keeping the base principles in its core and was staying away from the scandals.
Once BTC has already solved all the main technical problems last year, that were threatening its positions, with the faster transactions speed and lower commissions BCH has lost most of its competitive advantages.
With only ideas remaining in the advantage, the crack of the community might become fatal for the coin.
Prior to the hard fork, people inspired by the double benefits the split can bring them started to invest in BCH actively. But the fact that both sides keep escalating the conflict turning it to the war and the market crash pushed investors to abandon the dreams for the future profits and rushed them to save whatever they have now.
More fuel into the fire drops the war of hash rates. The nChain group, which develops the SV token, is headed by Craig Wright, a well-known developer, and a self-proclaimed Satoshi Nakamoto. The group plans to increase the block size to 128 MB, although the basic environment of Bitcoin Cash is incompatible with the new SV protocol since it contradicts with the Bitcoincash.org roadmap that the ABC team adheres to. But on the other side stayed the Bitmain mining giant. The corporation promised to release 90.000 ASICs prior to the hard fork. Bitmain wants to prepare for the emergence of two new versions of Bitcoin Cash – Bitcoin SV and Bitcoin ABC. Each Antminer S9 has a power of 14 TH/s.
Yesterday, the co-founder of ethereum Vitalik Buterin has entered the polemics on BCH future. He recommended simply to kick Craig Wright out, as it is still not too late to do.
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