FOMO Moments
Momentum has continued upwards over the weekend and crypto markets are pushing towards the critical $500 billion mark. Since their low of the year of $245 billion on April first, markets have gained 90% to current levels today. Bitcoin has remained flat over the past 24 hours and hovers just below $10k at $9,870. The general sentiment is that altcoins could start to fall once BTC pushes past that barrier and a bull run on it ensues. At the moment the alts are a mixed bunch with some making solid gains while others have fallen. The coin performing the best right now is Bitcoin Cash.
According to Coinmarketcap BCH is up 15% on the day and has had a very bullish week. Currently trading at a touch under $1,800 Bitcoin Cash is up from $1,540 this time yesterday. Over the week BCH has risen 24% from $1,450 this time last Sunday. The monthly view for Bitcoin’s brother is even more impressive with a gain of 180% from $640 this time last month. Despite the war between the two factions, who both insist their version is the real Bitcoin, BCH has outperformed BTC in recent weeks. On the day it is up 15% against BTC to 18157000 satoshis, monthly gains are around 94% from 9300000 sats this time last month.
The impending hard fork has driven traders back to Bitcoin Cash. Scheduled for May 15, the split will quadruple the block size from 8Mb to 32Mb, many believe this will increase overall adoption as transaction times and costs are reduced. A full specification of the ‘Bitcoin ABC’ upgrade has been posted on Github. In addition to an adaptive block size, the update could also reduce block intervals to 2.5 minutes, similar to Litecoin. It could also potentially activating dormant code to offer a similar feature to the ERC20 tokens based on the Ethereum network. The two camps are still actively duking it out on social media with BTC advocates claiming that the Lightning Network is the way forward while the BCH clan claims that increased block size is a truer reflection of Satoshi’s vision. Either way, Bitcoin Cash is on a roll at the moment.
South Koreans are buying up Bitcoin Cash this morning with Upbit and Bithumb taking 20% of the trade in KRW. USDT is the next commonly used medium to buy BCH on Huobi, Bitfinex and OKEx. Total volume has doubled from $1 billion to $2 billion in the past 24 hours. Market cap for BCH is currently $30 billion which is only $5 billion behind XRP in third spot.
All cryptocurrencies have increased their total market capitalization once again by 1.5% to $469 billion at the time of writing. Over the week markets have gained 7.3% since this time last Sunday. Other altcoins having a good run during Asian trade this morning include Litecoin, Ethereum Classic, Bitcoin Gold, and Bytecoin.
More on Bitcoin Cash can be found here: https://www.bitcoincash.org/
FOMO Moments is a section that takes a daily look at the top 25 altcoins during the Asian trading session and analyses the best performing one, looking for trends and possible fundamentals.