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Now that SegWit2x hard fork has been called off, traders have finally started buying their favorite altcoins. Today was one the best days for altcoins. Most of the major top-tier coins posted double-digit price increases as capital flowed back into their markets from Bitcoin.
Meanwhile, the price of Bitcoin, dropped by 4%, falling from $7,408 on Wednesday to $7,143 at present. The reason for this is that many traders had maintained larger Bitcoin positions in anticipation of the SegWit2x airdrop that would occur following the fork.
Over the last 24 hours, global trading volume has exceeded US$3.3 billion, being led by the US Dollar (USD) and South Korean Won on Bitfinex and Bithumb respectively. At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $7109 a piece, posting a market cap of $118 billion.
In the past 24 hours, Bitcoin Cash was the clear winner. It gained more than 31.3%, followed by Altogether, the cryptocurrency market cap added approximately $1.4 billion, ending the day at roughly $208.2 billion.
As of November 9th, Bitfinex will no longer be available to US Customers. Expect the volume share of GDAX to increase proportionally to the volume lost on Bitfinex. Coinbase continues to add several hundred thousands of users a week.
Top Stories from the Crypto World
1. Mysterious group BitPico threatens to execute the hard fork
A mysterious individual or group operating under the name “BitPico” has vowed that it will activate the SegWit2x hard fork as planned despite the decision by leading proponents to suspend the scaling proposition.
Here’s the full statement from BitPico:
“We are carrying out the fork regardless as everything is set in motion. Backing down the difficulty right now is a strategy. Wonder why 30% network hash-rate disappeared? It’s ours; the miners that will continue what is set in motion… A handful of humans cannot stop what they have no control over…”
Interestingly, BitPico admits that they control 30% of the Bitcoin hashrate and have made it disappear from the network.
But BitPico claimed in an email last month that their pool accounted for 1.72% of the global hashrate and that they were in the process of adding another 3-4% by the end of October. There is no way their hashrate increase by 24% in less than two weeks.
Even if they did account for 30% of the hashrate, that would not be enough to make SegWit2x hard fork. It does not appear that one should take BitPico’s threat to activate SegWit2x seriously.
2. Ethereum developers think ICOs are doing it all wrong
At Devcon3 in Cancun, when developers were approached for thoughts about the new funding method, they alleged that many projects that use it to raise money are little more than “scams.”
Even Fabian Vogelstellar, the developer behind the technology standard that helped make Ethereum tokens so easy to launch, said:
“The problem right now is that too many people outside of the blockchain space focus on tokens and ICOs; frankly speaking, it’s the least interesting part of Ethereum.”
Many other developers had the same line of thoughts when it came to ICOs releasing their own token to raise funds.
3. Tomatoes to get blockchain revolution
Yes, you read that right. Blockchain startups are adding immutability to tomatoes international supply chain. The brainchild of ex-Wells Fargo banker Raja Ramachandran and Nasdaq executive Phil Harris, one such startup is aiming to reimagine the market despite facing criticism.
“There’s a lot of fraud in food origins, especially now that it’s hot. People say ‘this is local,’ or ‘this is organic,’ or ‘this is grown using certain practices.’ With this system, you can prove it.” said the project manager Caroline Myran.