One month has officially passed since the bitcoin cash blockchain underwent a hard fork on November 15, resulting in the creation of two distinct networks.
They’re now commonly referred to as Bitcoin Cash ABC and Bitcoin SV. Yet in the weeks that followed the mid-November fracture, there is still no favorite in terms of overall price.
Bitcoin cash is designed in such a way that, every six months, its users must ‘fork’ the blockchain and adopt a software upgrade with changes determined by the project’s open-source software developers.
If the developers and miners reach consensus as to what the upgrades should be, the main chain stays intact and simply adopts the software upgrade known as a ‘soft fork’.
All bitcoin cash forks had fallen under the ‘soft’ category, but circumstances were different with the latest fork. This time around, the upgrades could not be agreed upon and tension grew among developers, so the main chain experienced a divisive hard fork – in other words, it split into two separate chains with their own cryptocurrencies.
Since the fork, both BCHABC and BSV have been trading on public cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance and Coinbase, but after 30 days of wild volatility and drastic swings in hash power, their prices stand just $10 apart.
Where are they now?
Bitcoin cash prices reached a peak of $621 in November but had fallen 32 percent to $421 on Nov. 14, the day before the scheduled fork. according to CoinDesk’s pricing data.
After the split, the two newly created cryptocurrencies bitcoin cash ABC and Bitcoin SV hit the market and began trading at $295 and $90 respectively on the Binance exchange.
It should be noted that multiple exchanges including Poloniex and Bitfinex engaged in ‘pre fork trading’ before the fork took place.
These experimental markets involved the trading of ‘IOU’ token place holders for BCHABC and BSV redeemable post-fork, theoretically allowing exchange users to decide amongst themselves which fork to support.
For much of November, BCHABC was the distinct price leader, at times valued as much as 10 times that of its counterpart.
The difference between the two narrowed as the month elapsed, so much so that Bitcoin SV was able to take a brief price lead on Dec. 6.
Since the fork, the broader cryptocurrency market has witnessed a significant sell-off of more than $80 billion in terms of total capitalization. As a result, the two forks depreciated greatly in price.
At the time of writing, BCHABC (currently trading under the BCH ticker on many exchanges) is valued at just $80, while BSV is $70, according to CoinMarketCap, so it’s clear the public has yet to pick an undisputed favorite.
Looking forward
While the long term success of BCHABC and BSV will likely be dictated by usage and hash power, technical analysis can be applied to their price charts so a more immediate direction of the assets prices can be anticipated.
As can be seen in the BSV/USDT chart above, price began forming a bearish consolidation pattern known as the descending triangle on Nov. 26, which broke down on Dec. 16.
The break of triangle support at $84 opened the doors for more depreciation with just two notable support levels nearby: $74 and $54. Based on the large size of the triangle pattern, it seems the lower support level is likely to be reached although the oversold conditions seen on the intraday relative strength index (RSI) may slow the fall.
There is less to glean from the BCHABC chart since it has been in a steady, near 80 percent downtrend ever since hitting the market.
With no known support levels nearby, it’s difficult to predict where its price may eventually pick up bid although oversold conditions are evident on the higher time frame charts, so sellers may soon take a breather allowing for a corrective bounce.
Needless to say, it’s unlikely either of the newly forked cryptocurrencies pick up strong big until bitcoin and the broader market does as well.
Disclosure: The author holds BTC, AST, REQ, OMG, FUEL, 1st and AMP at the time of writing.
Locked forks image via Shutterstock; charts by TradingView