Cryptocurrency Market Struggles to Record Gains; Bitcoin Cash Spikes 25%
Most major cryptocurrencies in the global market with the exception of Bitcoin Cash have struggled to record major gains over the past 24 hours. Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Cardano, and Litecoin all demonstrated a slight change in their values, failing to show large price movements.
Bitcoin Cash Surges
While the majority cryptocurrencies in the market recorded a 1 to 3 percent decline or increase in price, the value of Bitcoin Cash skyrocketed by 25 percent, leading traders in the cryptocurrency community to suspect a short-term pump.
Over the past few weeks, throughout the large correction, cryptocurrencies in the global market moved on a similar trend led by bitcoin and Ethereum. Apart from several rare instances wherein small market cap cryptocurrencies like FunFair increased for a brief period of time, the majority of cryptocurrencies in the market moved up and down simultaneously.
However, in the past 24 hours, the price of Bitcoin Cash increased from $995 to $1,250, with volume heavily concentrated on OKEx, the Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency exchanges operated by OKCoin, formerly the largest cryptocurrency exchange in China prior to the country’s cryptocurrency trading ban in September 2017.
Bitcoin Cash remains as the most frequently traded cryptocurrency on the OKEx trading platform, which currently is the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world with a daily trading volume of $2.4 billion. Previously, OKEx fell behind South Korea’s UpBit and Binance in terms of daily trading volume. But, because Binance has been offline for well over 24 hours due to a server issue, OKEx overtook Binance temporarily to become the biggest exchange in the global cryptocurrency market.
One similarity between all of the cryptocurrencies that have recorded massive gains over the past 24 hours including Bitcoin Cash, Qtum, and Ethereum Classic is that they are all heavily concentrated in the South Korean cryptocurrency exchange market. This week, premiums in the South Korean market have started to reappear, which is significant given that for the past few days, cryptocurrencies were actually cheaper on South Korean exchanges.
Since Bitcoin Cash, Qtum, and Ethereum Classic are all supported by the country’s most widely utilized exchanges in Bithumb, UpBit, and Korbit, it is likely that the recovery of the South Korean cryptocurrency exchange market and the entrance of new investors into the local market led the three cryptocurrencies to surge up in value.
Several traders suspected Roger Ver, the CEO at Bitcoin.com and an early-stage bitcoin angel investor, of bringing up the price of Bitcoin Cash prior to his interview with Alex Jones on February 9. However, Ver denied such rumors, firmly emphasizing that he has not made any bitcoin or Bitcoin Cash trades as of recent.
With a $2.5 billion daily trading volume, Bitcoin Cash is the third most liquid cryptocurrency in the global market, behind bitcoin and Ethereum. Bitcoin Cash rarely achieved a two billion dollar daily trading volume over the past few months and thus, the recent pump in the volume and price of Bitcoin Cash remains questionable.
Short-Term Trend
Overall, although the market has rebounded from its large correction last week, it is still struggling to show signs of mid-term recovery. Hedge fund investor and Pantera Capital CEO Dan Morehead, stated that bitcoin along with other cryptocurrencies will likely surge up in value again in several weeks.
“And we’re 52 days into this. It seems like another couple of weeks and everything will be normal and [bitcoin] can start growing back up again,” said Morehead.
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