Bitcoin Cash Gains 275% in 2019: Overtakes Litecoin to Claim 4th Spot

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) may not be making all the headlines within the cryptocurrency news circuit but it certainly enjoying massive growth in 2019. The Bitcoin fork is now the fourth-ranked cryptocurrency based on market capitalization and has gained over 275 percent since the start of the year.

Meanwhile, the situation for Bitcoin SV (BSV) is the direct opposite as its price continues to plummet, falling further in the wake of calls to delist the token from cryptocurrency exchange platforms.

Bitcoin Cash Continues Upward Trajectory

Data from CoinMarketCap shows that BCH is up about 275 percent since the start of 2019. BCH began the year trading at the $80 mark but has risen to $300 with the Bitcoin fork up close to seven percent within the last 24 hours.

The Bitcoin Cash resurgence has seen the BCH market capitalization top $5 billion, thus pushing it beyond Litecoin into the fourth spot on the market cap rankings. The altcoin’s trading volume is also reaching unprecedented heights, standing currently at over $1.3 billion which dwarfs even that of XRP.

These are only some of the metrics that show the significant progress made by BCH since the end of the November hash war with BSV. BCH on-chain transactions are a little over 40,000, an almost 300 percent increase.

For the most part of 2019 so far, altcoins have enjoyed a renaissance of sorts as prices have improved significantly after the bear market of 2018. This general positive price run in the altcoin market led to the emergence of the term altseason.

Bitcoin Cash has been a major participant of this altcoin resurgence that even led to a drop in Bitcoin’s dominance of the total cryptocurrency market capitalization. Then, at the start of April, Bitcoin also went into what many believe is the start of its bullish phase.

The top-ranked cryptocurrency gained more than 20 percent in a matter of hours as BTC surged towards $5,000. Based on the high internal correlation of cryptocurrency prices, BCH also followed suit, reaching even higher on the back of the upward BTC price action.

Analysts have also identified some important developments within the BCH protocol that could be improving the altcoin’s transactional efficiency. According to reports BCH devs are implementing protocol upgrades like Schnorr Signatures and Simple Ledger Protocol (SLP).

Bitcoin SV Falling by the Wayside

While BCH is riding high, BSV appears to be falling by the wayside. Binance on Monday (April 15, 2019) announced that it would delist BSV from its platform after seven days. The announcement follows the declaration by Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of Binance that the platform would delist BSV is Craig S. Wright (CSW) and Calvin Ayre do not stop bullying their critics.

Completely disagree

1. Binance is a centralized for profit group

2. The trading volume of BSV is among the lowest of top 20

3. Delisting has a ton of long term benefits to Binance + a positive sum to the industry @cz_binance did it not only for himself but the whole space https://t.co/9zZ8vZyTOM

— Dovey Wan 🦖 (@DoveyWan) April 15, 2019

The problem all stemmed from CSW forcing Hodlonaut, a popular Twitter account to recant statements made debunking Wright’s claim to being Satoshi Nakamoto, the Bitcoin creator. CSW, Ayre and their legal team also proceeded to set a $5,000 BSV bounty on Hodlonaut.

Over the last few weeks, BSV has careened off a cliff, even losing the gains from the initial early April bounce. Bitcoin SV is down more than 22 percent and since Binance’s announcement, the slide has become even steeper.

RIP $BSV pic.twitter.com/Po4OwJivU3

— Tuur Demeester (@TuurDemeester) April 15, 2019

Other exchanges might follow suit and delist BSV given its reportedly poor market liquidity. According to Dovey Wan, co-founder of Primitive, BSV’s trading volume is one of the lowest for the top 20 altcoins. However, as previously reported by Blockonomi, OKEx plans to partner with BSV.

On the flip side, critics of the move say Binance’s actions do not follow the spirit of decentralization of the cryptocurrency industry. Others say an entire project shouldn’t be made to pay for the misdeeds of a couple of its proponents.

   

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