Markets Update: Bears Continue to Drag Cryptocurrency PricesDown

Markets Update: Bears Continue to Drag Cryptocurrency Prices Down

Market Updates

Digital asset prices have been dipping in value again after a few days of price consolidation. At the moment, the entire cryptocurrency economy is awfully close to dropping under the psychological $100 billion market valuation. Furthermore, since our last markets update cryptocurrency global trade volumes are weaker than usual, with only $11.5 billion worth of assets traded over the last 24 hours.

Also read: Password Manager App Dashlane Mocks Cryptocurrency Owners

More Price Dips and Lower Trade Volumes

Crypto-market prices are sliding again as the top 10 digital assets have seen 24-hour losses between 2-13%. At the time of publication, the entire market capitalization of all the coins in existence is $104.2 billion today. Currently, bitcoin core (BTC) prices are down 3.8%, on Friday, and 2.8% over the course of the last week. This gives BTC a global average price of about $3,302 and the value is lower on certain exchanges. Moreover, bitcoin core has a market valuation of about $57.5 billion which is 55% dominance over the entire digital asset economy.

Markets Update: Bears Continue to Drag Cryptocurrency Prices Down
Top 10 cryptocurrencies on Dec. 14, 2018.

BTC is followed by ripple (XRP) as the market captures $12 billion and each XRP is being swapped for $0.29 per coin. Ethereum (ETH) holds the third position but markets are down 4.6% and ETH is being traded for $86 per token. Stellar (XLM) takes the fourth position today as each coin is trading for $0.10 a piece. However, XLM markets have lost over 7.5% during the last 24 hours of trading. Lastly, the current ruler of the fifth position is the stablecoin tether (USDT) which is trading for a U.S. dollar and once in a while a few pennies above 1 USD.

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) Market Action

Bitcoin cash (BCH) is the seventh largest market valuation just before the weekend and the entire BCH capitalization is only $1.4 billion. BCH prices during Friday’s trading sessions are down 13% over the last 24 hours and over 18% for the week. This action has given BCH a value of about $82 per coin with roughly $98 million in global trade volume. Bitcoin cash trade volume has increased since our last market update which is a positive sign.

Markets Update: Bears Continue to Drag Cryptocurrency Prices Down
BCH/USD daily chart.

The top five exchanges swapping the most BCH include Lbank, Binance, Kraken, Huobi, and Coinbase. During our last four market updates, ETH had dominated BCH trading pairs over the last few weeks. On Friday, BTC captures the most trades against BCH with 28.5% of global trades. This is followed by ETH (26.5%), USDT (22%), EUR (9%), and USD (6.4%).

BCH/USD Technical Indicators

Looking at the BCH/USD 4-hour chart on Bitstamp indicates that bears have the reigns again today. The long-term 200 Simple Moving Average (SMA) is still well above the short-term 100 SMA trend line. This shows that the path towards the least resistance is still very much the downside.

Markets Update: Bears Continue to Drag Cryptocurrency Prices Down
BCH/USD 4-hour Bitstamp.

The Relative Strength Index (RSI ~21.96) is also indicating extremely bearish conditions as the RSI is still showing an oversold market. Stochastic and MACd readings show a similar downside trajectory as there will need to be some surprise bull action to make things less dreary. Order books on the upside show bulls have some resistance from now until $100 and some smoother seas from there. On the backside, support is pretty decent from the current vantage point up to $75 where buy orders start to get slimmer.

Markets Update: Bears Continue to Drag Cryptocurrency Prices Down
Bitstamp BCH/USD trading view 4-hour chart on Dec. 14, 2018.

The Verdict: Uncertainty Remains Strong With Crypto-Markets Below Their 200-Day Averages

This December is showing that cryptocurrency values are not as bright as some people predicted throughout the course of 2018. Being so close to the end of the year, Fundstrat’s Tom Lee has stated that he’s getting “tired” of cryptocurrency price predictions. Lee stated multiple times this year that BTC prices could hit a target of $15,000-25,000 by the year’s end. According to Lee’s note to clients this week, the Fundstrat Global Advisor says BTC’s fair model price should be between $13,800 and $14,800.

“Given we are so close to year-end, we are not providing any updates to near-term price objectives — read this as, we are tired of people asking us about target prices,” explained Lee on Friday.

Lee conceded by adding:

Given the steep discounts of [bitcoin] to our fair value models, the excessive bearish sentiment about fundamentals does not seem warranted.

Lee’s fair market value is still more than $10,000 higher than today’s BTC spot prices. Further, with the price so low BTC/USD, and ETH/USD short positions are still at all-time highs this week. This means more so than ever individuals and organizations believe prices are going to drop again. A large portion of the top digital assets continue to slowly drop into a narrowing price range with no signs of any significant price bounces ahead. As long as BCH, ETH, BTC, and many other coins ride below their 200-day moving averages and show extremely oversold RSI levels, traders will remain skeptical.

Where do you see the price of BCH, BTC and other coins heading from here? Let us know in the comments below.

Disclaimer: Price articles and markets updates are intended for informational purposes only and should not to be considered as trading advice. Neither Bitcoin.com nor the author is responsible for any losses or gains, as the ultimate decision to conduct a trade is made by the reader. Always remember that only those in possession of the private keys are in control of the “money.”


Images via Shutterstock, Trading View, and Satoshi Pulse.


Want to create your own secure cold storage paper wallet? Check our tools section.

Markets Update: Cryptocurrencies Continue to Suffer FromDeep Losses

Markets Update: Cryptocurrencies Continue to Suffer From Deep Losses

Market Updates

It’s been a tough week for cryptocurrency holders, as the top 10 virtual currencies by market capitalization have lost 30% to 60% of their value over the past seven days. Prices this low have not been seen since the spring of 2017 and at the moment the entire economy of all 2000+ coins has a market valuation of about $128 billion.

Also read: Content Creators Can Earn BCH Using the Honest Cash Platform

Over $60B Lost During the Last 7 Days

A lot of cryptocurrency enthusiasts have been using words like “carnage,” “bloody” and “capitulation” to describe the recent cryptocurrency market downturn. The top digital asset markets show deep losses for nearly every single cryptocurrency besides stablecoins. Trade volume has increased since the slump, but only by a few billion, as global trade volume is currently hovering around $18.5 billion.

Markets Update: Cryptocurrencies Continue to Suffer From Deep Losses
The top 10 cryptocurrencies by market valuation on Nov. 25, 2018

Bitcoin core (BTC) markets dipped to a low of $3,475 yesterday on Nov. 24 but managed to rebound a hair back to the $3,817 range where it rests today. BTC’s spot value is down 11% today and 31.8% over the last seven days. Ripple (XRP) markets currently hold the second-highest valuation but markets are down 14.4% today and 32.6% since last week. One XRP is trading for $0.34 per coin and ripple’s market capitalization is $13.9 billion. Ethereum (ETH) has lost 9.9% over the last 24 hours and 37% since last week and the price per ETH today is $110. Lastly, the fifth-largest market valuation is held by eos (EOS), with the token trading for $3.24. EOS values have lost 9% in the last day and have seen losses of around 29% over the last week.

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) Market Action

Bitcoin Cash (BCH) markets have also seen better days and currently, the price is hovering around $160-195 (depending on the exchange), but reached a low on Saturday night down to $177. BCH is down 18.2% today and over the last week, has lost 56% of its market value. The cryptocurrency market dumps alongside the recent blockchain split has caused severe losses throughout bitcoin cash markets in general.

Markets Update: Cryptocurrencies Continue to Suffer From Deep Losses
BCH/USD seven-day charts

At the moment there  BCH global trade volume is 126 million and the total BCH market valuation today is hovering around $2.94 billion. The top exchanges swapping the most BCH this weekend include Lbank, Huobi, Bluebelt, Bithumb and Bittrex. Again the top currency pair with bitcoin cash today is ethereum (ETH), capturing 38.2% of today’s BCH trades. This is followed by BTC (30.9%), USDT (17.3%), KRW (12%), and USD (0.4%). The Korean won has made a noticeable increase throughout BCH trade volume over the last two weeks.

Markets Update: Cryptocurrencies Continue to Suffer From Deep Losses
Bitstamp 4-hour BCH/USD on Nov. 25, 2018.

BCH/USD Technical Indicators

The four-hour BCH/USD charts on Bitstamp and Bittrex show bears have managed to make it quite difficult for bulls to gain momentum. The two Simple Moving Averages (SMA) show the long-term 200 SMA is still well above the short-term 100 SMA. This indicates the path toward the least resistance for BCH traders is still the downside. BCH/USD has been clinging to long-term support for over the last seven days and oscillators like the Relative Strength Index and Stochastic have seen extreme oversold conditions twice this past week.

Markets Update: Cryptocurrencies Continue to Suffer From Deep Losses
Bitstamp four-hour BCH/USD on Nov. 25, 2018

Currently, four-hour RSI levels are meandering in the middle (-46.8)m showing some uncertainty throughout the ranks of traders wondering what will take place next. Order books show on the upside that bulls need to move past the current vantage point and the $220 price region in order to face smoother seas. Further, at the time of publication, the MACd shows things might be heading northbound for a short period of time and there’s plenty of room for improvement. On the backside, things look a bit dreary as there are solid foundations between now and $145, but after that things begin looking slimmer.

The Verdict: Traders Evaluate a Range of Price Forecasts

Most traders have been very curious about the next big move for cryptocurrency markets and the last two dips came as a surprise for many. The entire cryptocurrency market capitalization has lost a significant amount of value, shedding $60 billion since last week. After the big dips, most traders began waiting for a strong bounce that never materialized, leaving most digital assets clinging to long-term support. Top digital assets like BCH, BTC and ETH indicate there is pretty solid support at the current vantage point on the weekly’s EMA200 and a bearish-to-bullish trend reversal could take place in a matter of days. Some traders are betting a reversal is coming, but others anticipate more losses. Most traders this weekend are playing positions like a game of musical chairs and hoping their predictions will be correct.

Do you think cryptocurrency market prices will recover any time soon? Let us know in the comments section below.

Disclaimer: Price articles and markets updates are intended for informational purposes only and should not to be considered as trading advice. Neither Bitcoin.com nor the author is responsible for any losses or gains, as the ultimate decision to conduct a trade is made by the reader. Always remember that only those in possession of the private keys are in control of the “money.”


Images via Shutterstock, Trading View, and Satoshi Pulse.


At news.Bitcoin.com all comments containing links are automatically held up for moderation in the Disqus system. That means an editor has to take a look at the comment to approve it. This is due to the many, repetitive, spam and scam links people post under our articles. We do not censor any comment content based on politics or personal opinions. So, please be patient. Your comment will be published.

Hash Wars: BCH Proponents Confident a Resolution Is in Sight

Hash Wars: BCH Proponents Confident a Resolution Is in Sight

News

On Saturday, Nov. 17, the Bitcoin Cash (BCH) community entered the third day of its hash war, with many supporters growing confident that a resolution may be in sight. Close to 300 blocks have been mined on the Bitcoin ABC side of the chain using the new consensus ruleset, which has also given the network the most accumulated proof of work. In addition to the hash battles of the last few days, the first major cryptocurrency exchange, Bittrex, has re-opened bitcoin cash deposits and given the ABC chain the BCH ticker.

Also Read: Free Keene Activists Launch Bitcoin Embassy New Hampshire

BSV and the Satoshi Shotgun that ‘Doesn’t Shoot Straight’

Hash Wars: BCH Proponents Confident a Resolution Is in SightIt’s been a long few days for Bitcoin Cash supporters, but the war seems to be nearing an end in the eyes of many. After the split, the ABC side of the chain remained vigilant throughout the entire process, mining more blocks but more importantly capturing more proof of work. The SV side is still moving along, but is behind the ABC chain and SV has also performed less work.

On Nov. 17, the BCH community got ready to watch the Stress Test team send large batches of transactions, but according to a few Telegram chat rooms, the Stress Test, or “Satoshi’s Shotgun,” has not been firing so well. Observers have stated that Satoshi’s Shotgun was no longer able to reach the ABC network. People assumed the stress test developers were not prepared to adapt to two different networks. During the start of the test, Bitcoin Unlimited’s Peter Rizun commented on the Stress Test matter.

“The difference in network effect stark: BSV has few users, no OSX or Windows clients, no block explorer, perhaps one mobile wallet, and a shotgun that doesn’t shoot so straight,” Rizun explained to his Twitter followers.

Many Believe the Release of Bitcoin ABC Version 0.18.4 Should Give Confidence to Exchanges

Many bitcoin cash users have been discussing the ABC network’s safety and reliability, with a number of them opining that exchanges should re-open markets. For instance, according to one of the most popular posts today on the Reddit forum r/btc, the release of Bitcoin ABC version 0.18.4 with a checkpoint and re-org protection cements the split.

Hash Wars: BCH Proponents Confident a Resolution Is in Sight

This means that miners will continue securing the ABC side and Nchain, Coingeek, and the rest of the SV miners will be left on that chain. “This means that exchanges can resume deposits, and we should urge them to, so everything can get back to normal,” the Reddit post explains. One Reddit user explained that he is confident the ABC chain is now Bitcoin Cash (BCH) due to the most accumulated proof of work (PoW).

“ABC has won decisively. I wish the exchanges would realize this,” explains the Redditor’s comment. “Before the fork, everyone said that the most proof of work chain would continue as BCH, and ABC is the chain with the most proof of work.” Moreover, the analytical website Coin Dance cash confirms that the ABC chain has the most PoW and leads by 53.4%.

Hash Wars: BCH Proponents Confident a Resolution Is in Sight

Bittrex Exchange Listing: ABC Chain = Bitcoin Cash (BCH)

Hash Wars: BCH Proponents Confident a Resolution Is in SightLastly, one of the first major exchanges has chosen to list the ABC side of the chain as Bitcoin Cash (BCH). The Seattle based trading platform Bittrex has decided to list the ABC side of the chain as “BCH” and the SV side as “BSV.” According to Bittrex the exchange is opening up deposits, withdrawals, and trading for BCH but with longer confirmation (20) times for deposits.

“The “BCH” ticker will remain the Bitcoin ABC chain before the hard fork block — Bittrex will observe the Bitcoin Cash network for a period of 24 to 48 hours to determine if a chain split has occurred and the outcome,” Bittrex Zendesk support explained on Nov. 17.

Many BCH supporters seem to be confident that the war is close to ending and believe exchanges will continue to list ABC as Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and SV as BSV. However, some SV supporters are still in disbelief over the outcome and think the hash war will favor their side in “weeks” or maybe even “months.” ABC proponents don’t seem to be fazed by the continued threats of re-orgs and 51% attacks, and have sought to shun instigators of war. Even today’s stress test has been regarded as a fluke, and nothing more than an SV marketing ploy, according to members of the r/btc forum.

What did you think of the past three days? Do you think the hash war is over? Let us know in the comments section below.


Images via Shutterstock, Pixabay, Coin Dance cash, Twitter, and the Bittrex logo. 


Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section.

Discussions Intensify as BCH Fork Approaches

Discussions Intensify as BCH Fork Approaches

News

As the Bitcoin Cash fork draws near, a lot has been announced over the last few days concerning the consensus changes scheduled for Nov. 15. Earlier this week, the Bitcoin Unlimited (BU) development team released a new client version that includes the ability to configure the Bitcoin SV hard fork ruleset. In addition to the latest BU release, Electron Cash developers have also launched the first splitting tool for the upcoming fork.

Also read: A Look at Bitcoin Replay Attacks and Self-Managed UTXO Protection

BU Cash Contains Both Bitcoin ABC and SV Rulesets Available for Configuration

Discussions Intensify as BCH Fork ApproachesThe Bitcoin Cash community has been discussing the upcoming hard fork a great deal over the past few days. There’s been a whole lot to follow as developers and business executives have been stating their opinions, while BCH infrastructure providers continue to reveal their contingency plans. News.Bitcoin.com previously reported on the BU development team publishing code, which added the Bitcoin ABC ruleset changes for Nov. 15. At the time, BU developers said the SV ruleset would be added at a later date and the BU team hoped miners would vote on changes using the BIP135 bits standard incorporated into the BU client. Now BU has released Bitcoin Cash edition 1.5.0.1, which includes the Bitcoin SV upgrade changes.

“[Bitcoin Cash edition 1.5.0.1] will implement a set of consensus changes proposed by an alternative implementation, Bitcoin SV. Such a set of features are disabled by default, the default policy is to activate the set of changes as defined by the Bitcoincash.org specification,” explained the BU development team.

Essentially this means miners can configure their clients to ABC or SV nodes and vote on features from the rulesets they prefer. As the BU team further emphasized, “the SV and ABC forks are enabled. You must choose one.”

Discussions Intensify as BCH Fork Approaches
Bitcoin Unlimited nodes have been steadily rising.

The Electron Cash Coin Splitter

Discussions Intensify as BCH Fork ApproachesFollowing the latest BU Cash release, the BCH developers Mark Blundeberg, Mengerian, and Jonald Fyookball published an Electron Cash coin splitting tool in preparation for the possibility of a chain split. The developers have also written a user guide explaining how BCH proponents can safely split their coins if there happens to be a split.

“It allows people to give their coins ‘replay protection,’ by making it possible to spend coins using a script which is valid only on a chain following the upgraded Bitcoin Cash ruleset that includes Op_Checkdatasigverify,” the developers detailed.

The Electron Cash lead developer Jonald Fyookball goes further by explaining during his wallet upgrade announcement that the tool will allow users to send coins via the SV side of the chain, while providing users and exchanges with the ability to protect themselves from replay attacks. If the chains develop recognizable transaction sets over time, then users can selectively opt to split their coins naturally using the coinbase rewards, or by using the Electron Cash coin splitter.

Using DSV as Replay Protection and Receiving Transactions by Hash for All Nodes With Chopsticks

Additionally, other wallets and trading platforms are using ABC client script opcode DSV as a means of replay protection. Essentially, wallets and exchanges that use the method Op_Checkdatasigverify or DSV for replay protection explain they are giving users the ability to split coins between two different chains. This method can be used with other opcodes, as well. Coin splitting can be done with the opcodes DSV, CLTV, or even by using one of the new opcodes proposed by the Bitcoin SV client. In essence, proponents of this method have said that if someone sends a transaction to an address that uses the DSV opcode and then sends it back, it will not exist on the theoretical side of the SV chain.

Discussions Intensify as BCH Fork ApproachesLastly, some users have also opted to use the Chopsticks API, a platform that allows users to retrieve a transaction by hash on all four ABC, SV, BU and Naybc nodes. This means Chopsticks users will have the ability to choose between either chain or use both if the two chains exist simultaneously.

Overall, the Bitcoin Cash hard fork has been a very topical discussion over the last few days and will likely continue. In addition to all the fork discussions, BCH markets have spiked over the last seven days, as prices are up 51 percent at the time of writing.

What do you think about the possible splitting scenarios and preparations for the BCH fork on Nov. 15? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.


Images via Shutterstock, Pixabay, Bitcoin Unlimited, Electron Cash, and Chopsticks.cash


At news.Bitcoin.com all comments containing links are automatically held up for moderation in the Disqus system. That means an editor has to take a look at the comment to approve it. This is due to the many, repetitive, spam and scam links people post under our articles. We do not censor any comment content based on politics or personal opinions. So, please be patient. Your comment will be published.

New Bitcoin Cash Stress Test Sees 700,000 Transactions inOne Day

New Bitcoin Cash Stress Test Sees 700,000 Transactions in One Day

Blockchain

On Thursday, Nov. 1, a group of Bitcoin Cash (BCH) proponents who call themselves the Professional Stress Test Team, performed a network stress test on the BCH chain. During the course of the day, the BCH network saw over 733,000 transactions and a 14MB block that cleared 73,000 transactions in one fell swoop.

Also read: Anypay Provides BCH Invoices That Can Be Paid by Sending a Text

Bitcoin Cash Network Shrugs Off Another Stress Test

The Bitcoin Cash Professional Stress Test Team wrapped up another 24 hours of sending thousands of transactions and recording all the data on Nov. 1. According to the team’s Taste Test Report, the group constructed a transaction fan-out tool they called the DoW, which includes seven full nodes using three of the most popular bitcoin clients — Bitcoin Unlimited, ABC, and SV. Full node implementations for the stress test were dispersed around the world in the U.S., Finland, Belgium, and Hong Kong. When the stress test began, the BCH was added to the DoW’s UTXO management system, which split the transactions into multiple UTXOs that ranged in value between 15,000 to 15,000,000 satoshis.

New Bitcoin Cash Stress Test Sees 700,000 Transactions in One Day
BCH transactions (tx) historical view shows 733,782 tx processed on Nov. 1, 2018.  

Following this step, the UTXOs were held in a Walker process, a method that fans out the transactions and splits them into 20 to 2,900 new UTXOs. Each Walker process waits for the fan-outs to be confirmed on the BCH chain before starting again. Loading the Walkers is a manual process, the team detailed, and the group is in the midst of creating an automated loader. The way the stress test method is currently done is quite “time-consuming” and leads to a “delay in activation of all Walkers.” During the first phase of the test, the team experienced multiple Walker failures and random delays. “Nodes running Bitcoin Unlimited did not experience failures of this kind, while the Bitcoin SV (which still has the delay in place) and Bitcoin ABC nodes all failed to varying degrees,” explained the team. The stress testers continued by stating:

After the first 140,000 transactions were sent, the team spent some time making an analysis of what the issues were, and re-gathering UTXOs from failed walkers, and re-started the test.

New Bitcoin Cash Stress Test Sees 700,000 Transactions in One Day

The Outcome: A Cleared Mempool, Big Blocks, and 1/10th of a US Penny Per Transaction

New Bitcoin Cash Stress Test Sees 700,000 Transactions in One Day
“At this point, a further test was begun with a large number of small UTXOs resulting in the following: As can be seen, from 5.44pm to 5.53pm approximately 66,000 transactions were sent onto the network, or a rate of approximately 122 per minute. This culminated in a 10MB block which emptied the Mempool.”

At the end of the day, the team finished up the stress test with the final blast, utilizing all the remaining funds from the failed transactions left in the wallet. The developers detailed that this test was the “most optimized in terms of success rate” and there was a much lower failure rate this time around (less than 0.2 percent transaction failure). According to 24-hour statistics, the BCH chain processed 733,782 transactions during the course of the Nov. 1 stress test. The stress test organization also plans on assembling a large-scale test on Nov. 17, after the proposed network hard fork two days prior.

The group emphasized they were pleased with the DoW’s performance but they expect to be ready to handle a lot more capacity on Nov. 10. At that time the team expects to send 250-300 transactions per second onto the BCH network within a 1-hour time span. “This rate will need to be sustained indefinitely (24 hours at least) to achieve the goals laid out in the Professional Stress Test roadmap, and we look forward to delivering on this promise,” the stress testers conclude.

The Nov. 1 stress test was smaller than the test held on Sept. 1 and the four days of testing that followed. However, there were some notable achievements this Thursday, with block 554751 being the largest block mined during the day. The 14MB block processed held 73,000 transactions and the miner earned 0.14320561BCH in fees. Another block mined by the operation SV-Pool, processed a 9.3MB block with over 44,000 transactions. Just like last September, even though there were hundreds of thousands of transactions sent that day, the mempool (transaction queue) was cleared quite easily and network fees remained extremely low the entire day.

What do you think about the Nov. 1 stress test and the data that was found? Do you like to see network stress tests? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.


Images via Shutterstock, Pixabay, and the ‘Taste Test Report.’


Need to calculate your bitcoin holdings? Check our tools section.

Payment Platform Bitpay Adds Bitcoin Cash SettlementServices

Payment Platform Bitpay Adds Bitcoin Cash Settlement Services

News

On Wednesday, August 29 the Atlanta-based firm Bitpay announced that its merchants can now receive settlement in bitcoin cash (BCH). Not only can Bitpay merchants accept the decentralized digital currency and keep all the bitcoin cash, but they can also split their funds into a fraction of fiat and BCH as well.

Also Read: Nchain Publishes Bitcoin SV Alpha Release

Bitpay Adds Bitcoin Cash Settlement Services

The cryptocurrency payment processor Bitpay has made a lot of changes since its inception in 2011, and just recently the firm added bitcoin cash support for merchant invoices and the company’s debit card loads. On the merchant side Bitpay has always allowed clients to settle in BTC, and now the firm has added support so merchants can settle in BCH. Bitpay merchants can settle for all of the funds in bitcoin cash or they can choose fiat settlement instead in their local currency in order to avoid price volatility. Merchants using Bitpay’s services can also get a fraction of BCH and a fraction of fiat as well.

Payment Platform Bitpay Adds Bitcoin Cash Settlement Services“Most businesses still do business in national currencies — But more are starting to hold and use digital currency, too, from making bill payments to managing their treasuries,” explains Bitpay during the announcement.

Now we’re excited to announce the second digital currency settlement option for Bitpay merchants: Bitcoin Cash.

Payment Platform Bitpay Adds Bitcoin Cash Settlement Services
Users can get 100% BCH or 100% fiat. Or they can settle with their own desired ratio.

Bitpay Wants to Make It Easier to Accept Blockchain Payments

Since bitcoin core (BTC) had severe issues with scaling, which led to network fees rising above $50 per transaction this past December, a bunch of merchants and businesses who accepted BTC in the past have changed over to BCH. Bitcoin cash network fees have remained extremely affordable at $0.003 per transaction, giving many businesses a strong economic incentive to switch from BTC to BCH. This past Spring Bitpay gave people the option to choose either BCH or BTC during the payment invoice process.

Payment Platform Bitpay Adds Bitcoin Cash Settlement Services
Adding a BCH address and selecting the settlement percentage.

In order to use Bitpay’s merchant services and get a settlement in bitcoin cash, users must register with the firm and find their way to the Bitpay merchant services dashboard. From here a merchant simply selects ‘settings’ and then ‘settlement.’ Then, merchants add a BCH receiving address and choose how much bitcoin cash and/or fiat to receive after the sale, as it could be 100 percent or less.

Bitcoin cash fans were very pleased to hear the announcement across Reddit forums and social media platforms. The firm Bitpay emphasized it just wants to make accepting payments easier, noting:

We’re excited to continue our work to make the Bitpay platform the best way to accept blockchain payments – and to accept payments, period.

What do you think about Bitpay now supporting bitcoin cash settlement? Let us know in the comment section below.


Images via Shutterstock, and Bitpay.


Verify and track bitcoin cash transactions on our BCH Block Explorer, the best of its kind anywhere in the world. Also, keep up with your holdings, BCH, and other coins, on our market charts at Satoshi Pulse, another original and free service from Bitcoin.com.

Coingeek Speaks on Consensus Changes and Next-Gen ASICChip

Coingeek Speaks on Consensus Changes and Next-Gen ASIC Chip

News

Last week, news.Bitcoin.com reported on the proposed consensus changes published by the Bitcoin ABC development team, and the opposition towards certain elements of that proposal from a few BCH community members. Now the blockchain firm and mining organization Coingeek, led by the billionaire tycoon Calvin Ayre, has revealed some different proposed changes to the BCH protocol that the group would rather support. Moreover, Coingeek also explains the company has designed a next-generation ASIC chip that will be unveiled during the last week of November in London.

Also read: The Opposition Towards Bitcoin ABC’s Proposed Upgrade Changes

Craig Wright: The Plan is 128MB This November

Coingeek Speaks on Consensus Changes and Next-Gen ASIC ChipThree days ago we reported on the proposed changes being added to the next full node client published by the Bitcoin ABC development team. The new code changes should be in the next codebase release which is expected to be ready on August 15 for testing. As we discussed, the ABC developers plan to add canonical transaction ordering, a minimum transaction size of 100 bytes, activation of OP_CHECKDATASIG and OP_CHECKDATASIGVERIFY (CDSV), and push-only mandatory for scriptsig.

However, Nchain’s Craig Wright explained that CDSV would not happen while also detailing that friends like Calvin Ayre would not support the change. A few days later on August 11, Wright explained his preferred consensus changes that he would like to see implemented on the BCH chain this coming November. Wright states:

The plan is 128MB this November — 512MB in May 2019 — 2.0 GB in Nov 2020 and – after this, it is unbounded. There will be NO limits ANYWHERE in bitcoin. We expect 337k USD in fees a block just from one use case. That will then fuel BCH to become global money.   

Coingeek’s Statement Against Certain Changes and the Mining Pool’s November Suggestions

Coingeek Speaks on Consensus Changes and Next-Gen ASIC ChipFollowing this, on August 13 the mining organization Coingeek, which captures over 20 percent of the BCH hashrate, once again made a statement concerning Bitcoin protocol changes. The company starts off by explaining that it is fully committed to the global success of the original Bitcoin protocol which is “now restored in the form of Bitcoin Cash BCH.” Furthermore, Coingeek emphasizes that as a “significant miner” there are a few consensus changes they plan on supporting that are different than the changes proposed by Bitcoin ABC. The Coingeek proposal shows three features they would like to see implemented this November:

  • Continuing the program to re-enable the original set of opcodes. Specifically for November, CoinGeek supports re-enabling OP_MUL, OP_LSHIFT, OP_RSHIFT, and OP_INVERT.
  • Removing the current limit of 201 opcodes per script.
  • Raising the maximum block size to 128MB.

Additionally, Coingeek notes some changes within the Bitcoin ABC proposal that the organization will not support. Coingeek agrees with Craig Wright, and explains they will not “commit their hashpower” to any software implementation that supports “canonical transaction ordering and OP_CHECKDATASIGVERIFY (CDSV).”

“In the longer term, Coingeek will continue to support only consensus changes that restore the original Bitcoin protocol, and those that may be demonstrated as absolutely necessary to meeting the goal of massive on-chain scaling to terabyte+ blocks,” the mining pool details.

Coingeek Speaks on Consensus Changes and Next-Gen ASIC Chip
Coingeek’s hashrate over the last seven days.

Coingeek Emphasizes It Will Support the Best Interest for All Enterprise Bitcoin Cash Miners, and Plans to Unveil a “Next Generation ASIC Chip Design” This November

Coingeek also says it encourages the development of plug-in transaction selection, removing transaction delays, free and cheap fees, computational cost-based fee calculation, and the implementation of a secondary transaction cache to allow double spend monitoring for transactions. The firm says it will continue to support the original vision of Bitcoin and says other mining pools should join them in taking a stance.

“Coingeek’s suggested path is in the best interest of all enterprise-level mining operations and we welcome working together to support this now,” the company notes.

Coingeek Speaks on Consensus Changes and Next-Gen ASIC Chip

Following the statement toward enterprise mining operations, the company has also revealed it has designed a “next generation ASIC chip.” According to Coingeek, the chip will be optimized for enterprise-level mining on the Bitcoin Cash network. Coingeek details it will be showcasing the new technology at a booth during the organization’s London conference in November. The BCH mining pool says they invite all miners to join them at the even so they can plan for the future of the industry.

What do you think about Coingeek’s statements and proposals for the upcoming November Bitcoin Cash hard fork? What do you think about Coingeek announcing next-generation enterprise-grade mining chips? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comment section below.


Images via Shutterstock, Coingeek logo, Nchain logo, Coindance, and Pixabay. 


Verify and track bitcoin cash transactions on our BCH Block Explorer, the best of its kind anywhere in the world. Also, keep up with your holdings, BCH and other coins, on our market charts at Satoshi’s Pulse, another original and free service from Bitcoin.com.